Twisted Thing Called Love
by naomi-chan
Summary: Spike is finally reunited with Julia but things aren't always as they seem. Will he be able to find out the truth before it is too late for the both of them? And will he learn something about his feelings for another person in the process? Eventual SxF
1. The plan

~Twisted Thing Called Love~  
  
This is my first Cowboy Bebop fic. I really hope you enjoy ^_^ And well I think it's not your typical romance fic.... Spike?! C'mon it's your line... *smiles apologetically to the readers* Spike: What if I feel like not saying it? Me: Don't worry, you'll want to... remember I have the authoress powers to make you do anything I want you to... so I suggest you not piss me off... *grins evilly* Spike: *gulp* Heh heh... Naomi-chan does not own Cowboy Bebop. It belongs to it's respective owners. In addition, she worked very hard on this fic and if it resembles another fic, it is completely coincidental. Me: Thank you. One more thing you should know, *...* means thinking. Ok, on with the fic! ^_^  
  
A young woman got out of her ship and looked around. *I should be close...* she thought.  
  
She walked down a dark lonely street surrounded by shadows on the walls. She shivered a bit. She looked around and checked the address on a piece of paper. *Almost there... I wonder why he wanted to meet in such a private area... makes me not sure about trusting him at all...*  
  
She heard a crackling sound and looked around her. *I don't see anything...* Then she listened but didn't hear anything again.  
  
*Ugh, I hate walking around at night... not that I'm scared or anything but...* she looked around. *The freaks do come out at night though...* She heard a chortling sound. *Now I know I heard that for sure*  
  
She turned around and saw a drunken man coming up toward her. "Hey babe... what are you doin' here alone by your pretty self in a place like this, heh heh heh..." he mumbled while advancing towards her.  
  
"Well, if it isn't freak number one..." she muttered. Right before he was able to grab her, she kicked him where the sun dosen't shine, then grabbed his arm and twisted it around his back and kicked him to the ground. He was knocked out. She dusted her hands off and pushed her dark hair behind her ears.  
  
*He's so pathetic... lucky he caught me in a good mood though* Then her cell phone rang.  
  
"Hello?" "Are you on your way?" the voice on the line asked. "Yes," she answered. She looked at her watch. "I'll be there in about five minutes." "Perfect." "You have the money?" "Yes," the voice answered. "Okay then, bye." She hung up the phone.  
  
She reached the place. It was an old bar, deserted except for a small number of men, three of them with their backs toward her at the stools. She looked warily at the group and patted her gun. *I can never be too careful* She went inside.  
  
The leader of the group turned around. "Well, I'm glad you could make it," he said. He patted the stool next to him. "Have a seat so we can discuss things."  
  
She walked over to him and sat down. "So, what do you want me to do?"  
  
He laughed. "Well, it's true what they say. You are very straight forward. I like that. Those are usually the attributes of one who always get the job done. That's why I think you're the perfect person for this task."  
  
She put her head in her hand and leaned on the table. "Well, it looks like I'll have to thank my references then," she looked at him. "But I know it's a big task seeing as how much you are willing to pay me, so let's hear it."  
  
They discussed what it was that she had to do. "Well, then if that's what I have to do I'd be more than willing to, even though it's hardly difficult."  
  
"True... but it's my way, which is the only way to do it." He gave an acid smile.  
  
"Not to worry, everything will work out fine, but there's a certain way I operate. I will need some... insurance," she said while taking out her money card and putting it on the table.  
  
"Of course," the man said. He snapped a finger at one of the men behind him and the guy came up to the woman and took her card. "Ten-thousand wulongs," he said while putting the amount into her money card. She took the card back and smiled.  
  
"Ok, you have yourself a deal, I'll be over at the designated time and place to start the task," she said, while getting up to leave.  
  
"Perfect," the man said. "I'm sure I will enjoy your services... Erin." "Same here," she answered while leaving.  
  
The man smiled as a wisp of silver hair covered one of his cold eyes. "Yes," he said. "This should turn out quite well."  
  
* * *  
  
Spike looked around in the fridge for food. "Ugh, nothing in here but baking soda. Great, the only thing in here I can't eat." He stood up and shut the fridge door. "Jet, don't you have anything to eat around here?" he grumbled.  
  
Jet looked up from his place by the table. "Obviously, I don't. As you can see the proof is in the pudding... or in this case, in the fridge, hahaha" he said, laughing at his bad joke.  
  
Spike groaned and went to the living room. He saw Faye intently watching something. He walked up and sat down next to her. "What are you watching?..." She didn't answer him. He saw the old beta cassette machine and looked at the screen. He saw a little girl talking bashfully about herself to the camera.  
  
"So you found it, huh?" Spike asked. She still didn't answer him. "I wouldn't let Jet catch me watching that thing if I were you. He's still mad about you not paying him back for the C.O.D. charges of these things." No answer as she stared at her happy younger self on the video.  
  
She watched her younger self giving her inspirational advice and good wishes for the future. *The girls I was hanging out with, the bedroom I was in... I can't remember any of those* "Why can't I remember..?" Faye whispered sadly. Then the tape ended. She rewinded it and watched it again. Nothing. Rewind again. Still nothing.  
  
Tears slowly welled up in her eyes while she was about to rewind the tape again when Spike stopped her.  
  
"Faye, don't torture yourself by constantly watching this," he said. "Give it some time and maybe it will all come back to you."  
  
Faye looked up at Spike. "I... I can't remember... I see myself and I just don't remember..." Tears started to well up in her eyes. "Why can't I remember, Spike? Why can't I?" Then she started to cry.  
  
Spike was surprised. *I've never seen Faye cry like this before, this must really be getting to her* He didn't know how to respond, so he comfortingly put his arms around Faye and let her cry on his shoulder.  
  
*Why am I so weak?!* Faye yelled at herself. *I feel like a petty little girl , why am I allowing myself to do this?!* But she couldn't stop the tears from falling.  
  
Spike continued to hold her close. "I'm sure you'll remember one day, I mean it wasn't as if it was that long a time ago or somethin'," he said hoping to make her feel better.  
  
She looked up at him. *I could tell him about my past, but should I?* she thought. *I will, the moment is right* She sighed. "No, I don't think I ever will, Spike," she said, "There's something about me that you should know."  
  
Loosening his hold on her but not letting go, he sat back a little. "What is it?"  
  
She first looked at the television, then looked down, and then looked at Spike. "Well, many years ago, when the gate incident happened I got into a serious accident and almost died... but then I was put on cryogenic sleep..." She looked down, tears forming at her eyes again. "I was woken about three years ago, knowing no one, remembering no one... And then I had all these medical bills for the cryo sleep that I had to pay for...  
  
Spike was shocked. She had never told him about her past before. He could tell that it was hurting her to bring up all of those sad memories. "Look Faye, you don't have to tell me this if you don't want to..." he said.  
  
She gave him a small smile. "It's okay... I want to," she said and blushed a little. *Ughhh... why am I showing my feelings so easily? He expresses a little concern for me and there I go, blushing like an idiot!!!* she scolded herself.  
  
Spike looked at her. *It's amazing how childlike and innocent she can really be. It's as if I'm seeing a whole new side to Faye that she rarely let people see...*  
  
"Then... well I met a man who I thought cared about me... only to find out he was a con artist who left me with more debt when he feigned his death..." Faye started to cry again.  
  
"I promised myself I wouldn't cry again..." she whispered. Spike held her close once again.  
  
"It's ok to cry, Faye... it's ok..." he said soothingly. *That bakayarou!!! How dare he hurt Faye like that?! Especially at a time when she was the most vunerable... Poor Faye, she's been through a lot, and she's trying to be strong through all this*  
  
He continued to hold her. *She is so beautiful... I just feel like holding her in my arms and never letting go...* Then it was his turn to blush. *What am I thinking?! It's not like I like her like that or anything... of course not... we're just friends... of course I would care about her though...*  
  
Faye closed her eyes, content in Spike's arms. *This is like a dream... I've always wished he would hold me in his arms, I can't believe it's happening. Could it mean that maybe he feels the same? If only...*  
  
A long while later, Jet walked into the living room and saw the beta machine out. *I swear, if I see Faye watching this thing when she knows she hasn't paid the charges yet, I'll-* He was about to yell at Faye when he saw she and Spike in each other's arms, sleeping.  
  
"Well, isn't that cute..." he whispered and smiled, forgetting all about his previous mental threat. He silently left the room and went to bed.  
  
Spike woke up a couple of hours later and looked at his watch. "Five minutes after one," he muttered. He looked at Faye, resting against his chest, sleeping. *She looks like a little angel sleeping* he thought. *Too bad she can be the complete opposite when awake*  
  
He lifted her up and carried her to her room. He layed her on her bed and put the blanket over her. He looked at her for a little bit and then went to his room.  
  
--The next morning--  
  
Spike walked into the kitchen, still groggy from sleep, yawning and running a hand through his puffy green hair.  
  
Jet was at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. "Mornin' sleepyhead," he greeted him.  
  
Spike opened the fridge. "Well at least there's something in here today," he said. "Last night I dreamt there was roast beef in here... but oh well this will do," he said taking out a carton of milk.  
  
"Did some shopping today," Jet answered. "I was finally able to cash in on the last bounty head we caught the other day...." he then had a dissapointed look. "Actually I was hoping to buy some beef but you wouldn't believe the price, for what that's worth I might as well go to a planet that still has some cows inhabiting it an' kill them myself."  
  
Spike took a box of cereal out of a cabinet. "Well, that's the way it is, cows are rare, so the price is high, it's your typical case of supply and demand," he said while trying to open the bag.  
  
Jet drank the last of his coffee. "Yeah, but I still think that sucks."  
  
Just then, Ed came prancing into the room. "Spikey, I have some newwwss for youuu," she said while somersaulting.  
  
"What is it?" he said irritatingly, annoyed at the fact that she won't just call him by his right name.  
  
"There's some video mail for youuuu," she said from the floor.  
  
"From who, Ed?" Spike asked, trying to be patient.  
  
She sat up. "From some woman named Julia."  
  
---  
  
So what do you people think? Is it any good so far? I hope you like. Please give me feedback in your reviews ^_^ I will try to get out chapter two asap. And on a next note, thanks to the people who reviewed my other fics. I do need to get crackin' on the first one and finish it... gomen.. ^^() 


	2. To be with you again

~Twisted Thing Called Love~  
  
Welcome to the second chapter of "Twisted Thing Called Love" ^_^ Sorry about this chappie takin' a while, but it's longer and better ^^ Well, at least I think so. Anyway, I just noticed that the summary for this fic sucks. Gomen... So I might change it later, or at least alter it so it's more interesting. Okay Faye, you know what to do. Faye: ... Naomi-chan does not own Cowboy Bebop. It belongs to it's respective owners. *rolls her eyes* Me: I saw that! The warning I gave Spike applies to you too... remember... authoress powers ^^ Faye: ...Eh..heheh... you know I was only kidding... ^^() Me: Uh huh. Go on... Faye: As well, she worked very hard on this fic and if it resembles another fic, it is completely coincidental. Me: Very good ^_^ One more thing... *readers stare at her impatiently, prepared to throw rotten eggs at her* Really... one last thing. In case you're wondering, Tomato is the name of Ed's laptop... I think anyway. And also, I didn't say last time, '* * *' represents a scene change in case you didn't know. And a big thanks goes out to Ametenshi and Uisukii^in^your^sleep for their reviews. This chapter is dedicated to all those who reviewed and the ones who will review when they finish reading this. So remember, read and review ^_- *readers start throwing the rotten eggs at her* Ack! Ok ok I'm done. On with the fic! *runs off*  
  
---  
  
Spike almost dropped the milk he was pouring into his bowl. "Nani?!" he exclaimed.  
  
"Yes, I-" she was cut off mid-sentence when Spike ran past her.  
  
He ran to the living room where Ed's laptop was located and started clicking frantically on the computer keys looking for his mail.  
  
Ed and Jet followed Spike and watched him. "You're hurting Tomato..." Ed whined softly.  
  
He found the letter. *So this is it* he thought. *She was finally able to contact me... well here goes* He double-clicked the letter icon.  
  
A video-screen popped up and the screen showed a woman with long blond hair and blue eyes.  
  
"Julia..." Spike whispered.  
  
"Spike... it's been a long time, ne? It seems like forever we haven't seen each other... I'm sorry I wasn't able to meet you last time, but I will be there now, waiting for you... I hope to see you very soon..."  
  
Ed and Jet were quiet, reading the email from behind him.  
  
Spike stared at the screen, at her face for a little bit, and then stood up.  
  
He left the room and went to his bedroom and started to throw some clothes on over his t-shirt and boxers. Jet came up to his room and stood in the open doorway.  
  
He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. "So, is she from your past, Spike?" he asked.  
  
He turned around to face Jet while buttoning up his shirt and replied, "You could say that."  
  
"So, what are you gonna do now?"  
  
Spike slipped on his shoes. "I'm gonna go see her, what else?" He got up to leave the room.  
  
Jet grabbed Spike as he passed. "Is she the one, Spike?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean."  
  
"You know damn well what I mean," Jet demanded, "Is she the reason you can't let go of your past?"  
  
Spike shrugged himself out of Jet's grip and walked away, not answering him. Jet followed him.  
  
"I know I'm right," Jet called after him. "Dammit, Spike. You can't just throw your life away!"  
  
Spike still didn't answer. "She is not going to bring back the past, you can't just drop everything you have now so that you can relive your fantasy!"  
  
He stopped in his tracks and turned around. "She is not just a dream, she is the one I love and yes, the one I've been searching and longing for, and now that I have found her I am going to be with her!!!" He then continued on his way to the room where his ship was located.  
  
Jet stopped. *What am I saying? Who am I to stop him from doing what he wants? He's going to be with the girl he loves... I have no business trying to hold him back... I guess it's because things were going so well and I didn't want the natural order of things to change... but if he want's to go I won't stop him...even if it means he may never come back*  
  
He watched Spike get into his Swordfish II and start up the engine. "Tell everyone that I'm... leaving... and... well... that I said goodbye," he said.  
  
"Oh no," Jet retorted. "I'm not about to do your dirty work. You better give them a call and tell them yourself or something."  
  
Spike shrugged with a half-smile on his face and the MONO lifted and prepared for takeoff. "C'ya Jet," he said before he took off.  
  
Jet had one more question he wanted to ask Spike but had a feeling he already knew the answer. He wasn't coming back.  
  
"Crap... He knows I'm going to have to tell them anyway... The question is, how can I tell them?" he said to himself. "Shit... I'm in one hell of a predicament..." He knew the girls and Ein were very fond of him, especially Faye. *She'll be crushed... she tries to hide it but I know she's fallen in love with Spike. Last night, I thought the feeling was mutual... but now... I don't know...* He turned and went back into the interior of the ship.  
  
* * *  
  
Faye put her hand on the knob, about to open her room door and go down to breakfast when she heard two people pass her door. She was going to open her door anyway, but then she heard Jet speak.  
  
"So, is she from your past, Spike?" She stopped her hand drom turning the knob *What does he mean if someone is from Spike's past? Who is he talking about?* Needless to say, she got curious and stood there still as stone, straining to hear the conversation.  
  
"You could say that."  
  
"So, what are you gonna do now?"  
  
"I'm gonna go see her, what else?"  
  
Faye gasped softly. *Who are they talking about? Who is it that he's going off to see?* She then had a sinking feeling of dread but tried to push it away. *It's probably nothing...* But she wasn't doing a good job of trying to comfort her thoughts.  
  
She was so preoccupied with her speculations and also since they were walking away, she sort of missed the next few words that were said.  
  
After a bit though, she heard Jet starting to yell.  
  
"Dammit, Spike. You can't just throw your life away!"  
  
"She is not going to bring back the past, you can't just drop everything you have now so that you can relive your fantasy!"  
  
But Spike's response finally showed her the big picture.  
  
"She is not just a dream, she is the one I love and yes, the one I've been searching and longing for, and now that I have found her I am going to be with her!!!"  
  
She stood still at the door, in shock. For a moment she couldn't think, move, breathe or anything. She was just existing in a second that lasted for seemingly eternity.  
  
Then, just as quickly, all of her senses and thoughts came rushing back to her, all too quickly. It was all she could do to sit on her bed and try to gather all of the thoughts and feelings raging on inside of her.  
  
*So... he was in love... with someone else...* she thought. *All of this time... he was saving his heart for another woman...* Then a feeling of bitterness washed over her. *So all of the feelings I thought he had for me was just something I made myself believe was going on, it was never real*  
  
She then layed down on her bed and reached over to open her bedside drawer and took out a framed picture of them, all together one time when they went to a theme park in Mars. It was Ed's birthday, and she wanted to go to a theme park. Faye still couldn't believe up to this day that they actually went, all at first intended to have a bad time, sans Ed. They ended up having a lot of fun. Ed had wanted them to take a group portrait of the memorable event and after alot of presuation from the guys, they finally obliged. They were all posed funny, she looked at Spike holding up his hand in a peace sign behind Faye's head. When she purchased it for Ed, she decided to secretly get another copy of the picture for herself. She looked longingly at the photo and wished more than anything to be back there again, to be with Spike again.  
  
*Last night... it couldn't have been fake... I could really feel something happening...* she thought, still looking at Spike's face in the photo.  
  
But then the negative thoughts came back. *It was nothing that happened last night, it was probably just pity he was showing toward me... none of it was real... and I acted like such a whiny little baby and completely opened up to him ughh I was so stupid!!!*  
  
She threw the picture on the floor angrily as the tears welled up in her eyes. *It figures that when I finally open up to him, he leaves...* She then buried her face in the pillow and started to cry.  
  
The portrait lay forlorn on the ground, a huge crack in the glass where Spike's face was.  
  
* * *  
  
Spike put his ship on autopilot and leaned back and thought. *So I'm finally going to be able to see Julia again...* He remembered when he had last seen her, when they had planned to meet the next day, same time, same place to completely leave everything behind and to run away together. The next day, Spike went to where they were supossed to meet... only to find she wasn't there. He never knew what happened but he just had the feeling that Vicious was behind it. Vicious...  
  
They had to be careful with each other, afraid of letting Vicious finding them out... but he found out anyway. "Vicious..." he balled his fists as a wierd feeling surged through him. He looked at his radar. He was almost there. *Once I get Julia, I'm comin' after you, Vicious*  
  
* * *  
  
Jet walked back into the living room, his mind racing of ways with which to tell everyone of what happened with Spike. "Dammit..." he muttered.  
  
Ed was back on her laptop again, lost in her digital world.  
  
Jet felt that he might as well get it over with. "Ed... hey Ed..." he said, while tapping her shoulder.  
  
She turned around and took off her headphones. "Jet Jet!!" she said brightly.  
  
"Uhh.." Jet started, a little suprised at how Ed had broken attention away from the computer so quickly he had forgotten what it is he had wanted to say.  
  
"Yessss?" she inquired.  
  
He knelt down to be more eye-to-eye with Ed. "Well, umm you know the woman who emailed Spike... well..."  
  
"He has to go right?" she asked knowingly.  
  
"Yeah... he had to go find her..." Jet said, relieved at the fact that he didn't have to tell her since she already knew.  
  
"Ed understands," she said and smiled. "Ed thinks it's romantic!"  
  
Jet rubbed his bald head. *Maybe she dosen't quite understand everything... I should get her straight on it all* "You know there's a possibility that he may not come back, right?" he asked.  
  
Her smile barely faded. "Yes, I know," she said, "All Ed can do now is wish him the best of luck and hope he's happy."  
  
Jet looked at her in astonishment. *Well would you look at that? She's a lot more mature than I usually give her credit for*  
  
"Well then, I'm sorry for disturbing you from what you were doing," He got up. "Carry on."  
  
Before he could walk away though, Ed suprised him with a question.  
  
"Are you going to miss him?"  
  
Jet turned around awkwardly, not prepared for that question. "Of course not, he can do whatever he wants, I don't care," he said while walking away, not feeling like being asked another of those questions again.  
  
"Right..." Even from where he stood, Jet could hear the sarcasm in Ed's voice.  
  
He decided to ignore that and then he checked his watch. It was twenty after four. It just occured to him that he didn't see Faye all morning and now it seems to be for the afternoon as well.  
  
*Maybe she's sick or something, not even she sleeps in this late* He decided to go check up on her.  
  
He went to her room and knocked on the door. No answer. He tried again. Same response.  
  
"Faye?" he called. "Are you alright?"  
  
Nothing.  
  
He stopped then because he thought he heard a small sniffling. "I'm coming in," he called.  
  
He cautiously opened her door. Her room was pretty much dark except for the light shining from outside her door. His eyes searched for Faye. She was sitting on the edge of her bed.  
  
She looked up at him. "Hey Jet," she said. Her voice sounded wierd though.  
  
He looked at her critically. She sounded like she was crying. He decided not to press anything about that yet. "What are you doing in the dark?" he asked.  
  
She looked away. "None of your damn business," she muttered.  
  
Oh well, he tried to make it easy. He turned on the light when she least expected. He saw her puffy face. "So you were crying, eh?"  
  
She looked at him in suprise but didn't answer. His eyes were drifting and they happened to see a picture frame on the night table. He quickly took it and looked at it.  
  
She snatched it back from him. "Just get the hell out!!!" She was fighting a losing battle of holding back her tears.  
  
It was too late though, he had already seen enough of the picture. When he had looked at the portrait he was suprised to find it was the picture of them when they went to the theme park that day last year. However, he saw the large crack in front of Spike's face.  
  
*So she found out...* he thought.  
  
"Faye..." he said. "I'm so sorry..."  
  
"What's there to be sorry about?"  
  
"I know how you feel about Spike, and now that he's left-"  
  
"Oh, so that asshole finally left? Good. We're better off without him..."  
  
"There's no use pretending... I know how you feel about him....."  
  
"So, you know everything huh?!" she snapped. "You know how I was so in love with this frikin' lughead that I made a complete ass out of myself, telling him things I swore I wouldn't tell anyone, you also know how I cried on him like a shameless baby, and OF COURSE you know how much of an idiot I was to think that he actually gave a shit!!!" She angrily brushed away a tear.  
  
Jet didn't know what to say. "Faye..."  
  
She got up. "Forget it, Jet... just forget it," she walked out.  
  
He watched her leave. Then he picked up the portrait and looked at it again, and then left the room.  
  
* * *  
  
Spike got out of his ship and looked around. He wasn't too far from the park. He began to go in that direction.  
  
Then he saw her. She was standing in the distance, not looking in his direction.  
  
He walked towards her and smiled. *This is just as I remember...*  
  
She turned around and smiled at him. She walked up toward him.  
  
They reached each other. "Spike... It's been so long..." she said.  
  
---  
  
Well, whaddaya think? Lemme know by clickin the button below ^_^ Till next chapter... ja ne! 


	3. Keeping Secrets

~Twisted Thing Called Love~  
  
Hey again peeps ^_^ Welcome to the third chapter of "Twisted Thing Called Love" Yes I know it's almost a month since I updated, but it's been a busy time with school and all. But even through that, I try to write with my free time as much as possible ^^ It's just that there's just not that much free time since I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology -.- Oh, a thought: this is the first story I've written that is going to be longer than two chappies-- oh, well not really, I had this nice fic I was working on that I was almost done with when my comp crashed and I lost it all . Since then, I never had the heart to work on it again... *sniff* Speaking of crappy computers, I had finally gotten an mp3 player for my b-day which was only almost 2 weeks ago and I find out my comp can't handle the player... how pathetic... I really need a new comp.... *sniffs again* Well anyway, enough complaining from me. Lotsa thanks goes to Uisukii^in^your^sleep for reviewing the last chapter ^^ I'd love to get more reviews for this chapter, so ppl plz read and review ^_^ Oh, yeah... disclaimer... it's the same as the last ones: I do not own CB so dun worry about it :)  
  
Spike looked at her. He couldn't believe they were finally in the moment he had been waiting so long for.  
  
They had a long embrace.  
  
"Is everything ok with you?" he asked, still holding her.  
  
"Yes, now that you're here with me everything's perfect," she answered.  
  
"Is anyone after you now?"  
  
She let go. "Well, I've been laying low for a while so they let off on the searching..." she looked around. "That's why I wasn't able to be in contact with you for so long... They were after you and I knew that being with you would cause more problems..."  
  
"It's ok, I understand. The only thing that matters now is that we're together," Spike said while caressing her hands. "But all the same, to be on the safe side, we shouldn't hang around out here."  
  
"True," she said. "There's a place that I'm staying at nearby since I got back here."  
  
"Well, let's go then."  
  
* * *  
  
Jet sat deep in thought, scissors in mid-cut through one of his bonsai tree's branches. "Hmm.." He was finding it difficult to concentrate. He then snipped the branch.  
  
"Crap... I cut off too much," he muttered to himself. *This is so wierd... I would think with all the quietness here I would be able to concentrate better but it's turning out to be the opposite* He never realized how used he had acutally gotten to Faye and Spike's arguing. Right about this time they would probably be arguing about who got to use the shower first or something of the like.  
  
He examined the little tree and sighed. Now the whole symmetry he was going for was off. It seemed like everything was off around here these days. It's been over a week already. The girls were starting to worry him. Ed was acting very elusive and is on the computer even more than usual, and Faye was spending most of her time holed up in her room. Even Ein was acting wierd as well.  
  
As for Jet, he caught a couple of bounties, though it felt wierd to do it again without the other two. They didn't always get along, but at least they were a team. He shook himself out of his nostalgic thoughts and busied himself with fixing his plant.  
  
After a couple of minutes he realized that he was just making the tree worse and left the room and went to the kitchen. To his suprise the dinner he left for everyone was still on the table untouched.  
  
*Shit... how many times do I have to remind them to eat around here* he thought angrily. *I'm not their damn wet nurse!*  
  
"Ed! Faye!" he yelled. "Get your asses down here and eat!!"  
  
*It's been like this since Spike left. The girls don't eat unless I remind them...* He saw Ein's licked clean doggie bowl. *Well at least Ein still remembers how to chow down* He picked it up and washed it out. *This is what they've come to, Spike... for the life of me I hope you know what you're doing*  
  
* * *  
  
Spike looked out the window at the partly cloudy sky. They were in Julia's apartment, where they've been mostly for the past couple days.  
  
"Julia," he said.  
  
No response.  
  
He turned around from the window and looked at her by the stove. "Julia," he said again.  
  
She quickly looked up from cutting carrots. "I'm sorry," she said. "What is it, Spike?"  
  
"Today is the perfect day," he said. "The perfect day to run off, like we've always wanted."  
  
No response.  
  
"So what do you think?" he asked.  
  
"Well..." she faltered. "I don't think..."  
  
"What's wrong?" he came up behind her. "Don't you just want to put this all behind you and be free? You've always wanted that," he wrapped his arms around her waist. "And this is a great time to do it."  
  
She tensed up and clutched the knife for a while before quickly putting it down. "I-I can't do this," she muttered and broke out of his hold and walked away to the bedroom.  
  
He stood by the stove in disbelief for a while, and then followed her. "What's wrong?" he asked.  
  
"I'm okay," she said. "I... just want to be alone right now..."  
  
He decided that it would be best to do as she said. He went to the livingroom and sat in a couch and thought.  
  
*She's been acting so wierdly... and she's acting even more wierd these past couple days. Things just don't feel the same as I remember* he thought. *It's like every time I get close to her she acts funny* He looked at the closed bedroom door and then had a different thought. *But then again it's been three years, people can change in three years... maybe something happened to her that's bothering her that she didn't tell me about... I'm gonna talk to her* With that in mind, he went to go speak with her.  
  
She was in the bedroom, staring at herself in the mirror. *Why can't I just do it? Why is it all of a sudden so hard? Something like this is usually a breeze for me, but things are just different now for some reason... Maybe I...* She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. *It couldn't be... could it?*  
  
Just then, a knock diverted her from her jumbled feelings. "Can I come in?" Spike asked. "Yeah sure," she said, while composing herself from her thoughts. He walked in and sat down on the bed. "We need to talk," he said.  
  
* * *  
  
At the same time in a ship further down the galaxy, a purple-haired woman was also looking at herself in the mirror.  
  
"Ugh, I look horrible," she muttered and offhandedly brushed her hair back with her hands. "Hair not combed, no makeup, nothing... I look like a mess." She unconsciously picked up her makeup brush and foundation and was about to put it on when she stopped herself.  
  
*What am I doing?* she thought. *It dosen't matter what I do now. It's obvious he dosen't care about me one way or the other, let alone about how I look* "He only cares about HER," she said aloud.  
  
She stared at her image in the mirror and her eyes stung. *What makes her so special? Couldn't he have fallen in love with me, especially since we've been together so long? Maybe it's because I haven't been so easy on him... I probably got on his last nerve and he couldn't stand me anyway*  
  
The tears started to come as that idea overwhelmed her thoughts. *Yeah, it's probably true, I don't blame him... I probably remind him of an annoying little sister or something. Oh I wish I had been nicer to him... Maybe if I tried to get along with him more, maybe he would have fallen in love with me and then maybe...* The tears started to fall. "Shit... I promised myself I wouldn't cry for that bakayarou anymore..." she sniffed as she wiped her tears. Her legs then started to feel weak and she fell to her bed and hugged her pillow as the tears started to flow down. *Why do I have to feel so weak and broken up over him? It's not fair*  
  
A knock came at her door.  
  
"What 'cha want?" Faye said, the pillow muffling her voice.  
  
"Faye?" the voice said.  
  
She pulled the pillow way from her face and sat up. "Come in," she sighed.  
  
Jet came in with a plate of food in his hand. "It's getting late and you didn't eat dinner yet."  
  
"I'm not hungry," she said, eating not something she felt like doing at the time.  
  
He put her plate down on the night table. "Try to eat at least some of it," he said. "You can't just let yourself waste away." Her already small frame was becoming more frail lately.  
  
"Fine, whatever," she said. "If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone right now."  
  
"Yeah, sure," he said and exited the room.  
  
Faye took a look at her dinner and collapsed back on the bed, pillow drawn over her face again.  
  
* * *  
  
She looked at him. "What do you want to talk about?"  
  
Spike didn't mince words. "Is there anything else that's been going on with you these last couple of years that you didn't tell me about?"  
  
She looked startled. "What do you mean? I already told you what happened with me before now, it's the same thing."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Hmm I would think so," she said sarcastically. "Like I told you, nothing much happened. I was able to successfully keep low and out of danger, while trying to find you."  
  
"So nothing else happened? Because you know you can tell me anything."  
  
"I'm positive, trust me. What I don't know is why you're acting so concerned when I already assured you everything is fine. What's with this?"  
  
Spike didn't know how else to say it. "Well, you've been acting so wierdly since we saw each other again, and I don't know if it's because you changed or if something changed you. I just wanted to make sure that you're okay, and to let you know that I will always be there for you." He sighed inwardly. There, he said it.  
  
She gasped slightly and paled. Not quite the reaction he was expecting. "What's wrong?" he asked.  
  
*Oh no* she thought. *He's getting suspicious... that can't be good...*  
  
"Nothing... I'm fine," she lied. "I just remembered... the food on the fire is going to burn, I'd better go check on it," and with that, she swept out of the bedroom.  
  
He watched her rush away from him again for the second time that day. He dug into his pocket, got out a cigarette, lit it and and took a long drag from it. He was a master of the craft of lying, and in turn couldn't be fooled so easily. He could plainly tell that she was keeping something from him and by the looks of it, something big.  
  
Okay, so what do you think? Lots of mystery now I know, but next chapter, all will be revealed. Stay tuned... or reading... or.. whatever. Remember the two important R's of reading... read and REVIEW!!! 


	4. Betrayal

Twisted Thing Called Love  
  
I'm baaack!!! Here to bring you the latest installment of "Twisted Thing Called Love"!  
  
Spike: Don't give us that. What do you have to say for yourself?  
  
Me: Hehe... Gomen nasai...  
  
Faye: That's not good enough. You've kept the readers waiting long enough-  
  
Me: Okay okay we can't keep arguing, people came here to read, not to hear us rambling on. So I will say this: Sorry to everyone for the wait, it's just that I had a paralyzing case of writer's block, it was horrible. I'm beginning to recover from it now, though, slowly but surely.  
  
Jet: Dont forget to mention your procrastination and lazyness issues...  
  
Me: Not you too Jet, I thought I could at least count on you 'sniff' Well, anyway, I hope you all like this chapter. It reveals a lot of the mystery that was in the beginning of the story so it should be interesting... hopefully... Well anyway, a lot of thanks goes to Kagome, person, and beautiful stranger for reviewing the last chapter. I appreciate it lots.  
  
Disclaimer: I dun own Cowboy Bebop, or the song "The Real Folk Blues" They belong to their respective owners. Umm well that's about it, enjoy the fic and please review!   
  
(A/N: I changed the summary like I said I was going to. What do you think? At least as it's not as corny as the first one... well I think so... And also, something is wrong with the display of certain characters so I had to change the symbols I use for thought into '...' so wherever a thought is represented, it will no longer have the star symbol but will instead have this '...' ) Okay, on with the fic!  
  
---  
  
A blond-haired woman slowly opened her eyes and looked around, her mind hazy. Then she saw the small dark room and instantly remembered where she was. She had a bad headache. She groaned and shifted in her chair.  
  
Then she heard footsteps coming toward the door. The knob slowly turned. A man entered the room.  
  
"I see you're already up," he said, walking towards her. "Have a good rest?"  
  
She frowned. "How can anyone have a good rest when they're tied up?" she retorted sarcastically.  
  
Well, true," he said, running his hands through her hair. "But don't worry. Soon it will all be over."  
  
She glared at him. "Get away from me," she said maliciously.  
  
He walked towards the door. "It's a shame that things had to end this way, but you really left me no choice, Julia." He left the room.  
  
She sighed in frustration. 'Things just can't get any worse... I hope Spike is alright....' Then a next, more scary thought came in her head that she tried to shake but couldn't. 'If he's still alive... No, he's got to be alive... I can just feel it somehow... I've got to find a way to get out of this hellhole and get to him as soon as possible' "Damn you Vicious..." she said and tried to stop the tears that were threatening to come. 'Spike is in horrible danger and he doesn't even know it...' "Please be alright..." she whispered.  
  
-------------  
  
Spike and "Julia" were on the couch together watching a movie. Spike had dozed off and was laying across the couch with his head on her lap.  
  
She looked at his sleeping face and affectionately sifted her fingers through his hair. 'He looks so cute lying there' she thought. 'I know this isn't right, I should have done my job long ago... but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to do it, I just couldn't kill him'  
  
She looked at a pen on the side table. 'I've had so many opportunities to kill him... like the day when he was behind me when I was cutting the carrots, I could have stabbed him, killed him easily, but I couldn't do it...' She picked up the pen and twirled it around in her hand. 'Like right now, I could stab him in a vital spot on his neck, and he'd die instantly. But that's not even an option now...' She put the pen back down and looked at him again. 'These past couple of weeks have been crazy... Unbelievable... I've developed all these feelings for the man I'm supossed to assassinate...'  
  
At that point, he started to frown and turn restlessly. "No..." he muttered. She looked at him in concern. 'Oh no... he's probably having a bad dream... maybe I should wake him up...' Before she could do anything, he said in his sleep, "You fucking bastard..." 'Could it be the dream's about?-' He cut off her thought with another sleepy comment, though this one was clearly said in contempt, "No, you'll be the one who will pay, Viscous."  
  
'Oh no' she thought. 'I'd better wake him now' She started to gently shake him. "Spike it's okay, it's only a dream," she said soothingly. He started to twist even more relentessly. "Leave her out of this..." he muttured more urgently. She shook him harder. "Spike, wake up..." "No... Julia!!!" His eyes snapped open. He sat upright and then looked around and realized where he was, and then put his head in his hands. "Are you okay?" she asked, putting an arm around him. "...yeah," he said while staring at the ground.  
  
Then he looked at her and sighed. "I had a dream about facing off against Viscous... but the wierd thing was, even though I dreamt about that sort of thing before, this dream was so... vivid... I had him wounded and everything, but then he grabbed you and threatened to kill you..." he closed his eyes and said in a small voice, "He had his sword pressed against your neck... Right before I woke up, he was already starting to-" "Don't worry about it Spike," she interrupted, not wanting for him to go into the subject further, "What's important is that it never really happened. Sometimes it's best not to dwell into these things." He looked at her seriously. "But what if it does?" he said, standing up. "Unfortunately, I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that and it's something I don't want to risk. There's only one thing I can do to make sure this dosen't become real life."  
  
She all of a sudden had a bad feeling about this. "What are you planning to do?" she asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.  
  
"I have to go find Viscous and end it now, before it's too late."  
  
"What do you mean?" she asked, now really not liking the answer she was getting.  
  
"Julia, I promised myself that once I found you, I would go and end this thing between Viscous and me. This is a sign that I have to do this as soon as possible," he said and started off toward the bedroom.  
  
She got up and went after him. "But... Spike, you can't," she protested. 'If he goes off to fight Viscous, there will be a lot at stake... not only his life, but he will also find out the truth...' She stood in front of him, tears threatening to come down. "You just can't..." If he found out the truth, it will be over, she knew he would never forgive her if he found out that she was initially hired by Viscous to assassinate him. It would all be over.....  
  
-------------  
  
Julia was still thinking of a plan of escape. 'C'mon, there's got to be a way out of here that I haven't thought of yet... I have to think fast, every second that passes is crucial...' She tried against the bindings again. 'Shit... if only it were a little more loose... I could maneuver out of it...'  
  
Out of options for the moment, she leaned back and groaned. 'It's all my fault' she thought. 'If only I hadn't been so stupid, so gullible, neither me or Spike would be in this situation...'  
  
---'A couple of weeks ago'---  
  
Julia walked into the bar and sat at the stool nearest the band that was playing. It was pretty empty, there were some men sitting at a table near the back. The bartender came over to her. "What will it be?" he asked.  
  
"Vodka mixed with cranberry juice," she responded and then looked over at the band that was playing "The Real Folk Blues". She took her drink and then closed her eyes and felt herself get lost in the music.  
  
After a while, she thought she had heard someone call to her but wasn't sure. At the next, more louder call of "Miss?" she opened her eyes and saw that the stool beside her was now being occupied.  
  
"Oh sorry," she said, inclining toward the band, "I didn't hear you."  
  
"It's okay," he said. He had brown hair and blue eyes, he was stocky with a broad face. He looked to be in his late thirties. He looked over at the band. "Nice song, isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah," she answered, still wondering what it was he called out to her to talk about.  
  
As if he read her mind, he said, "Listen, I heard that you were looking for a guy named Spike Speigel..."  
  
"Yes, I am," Her curiousity peaked. She had been asking around for his whereabouts for the past couple of months. "You know where he is?"  
  
"Well, not exactly," he said, swirling his drink. "But I know someone who does."  
  
"Okay..." she said, liking where this was going.  
  
"Anyway, he's not far away; he's playing in the pool hall across the street. I'm sure he wouldn't mind telling you where he is," he then took a drink.  
  
"That's great, I'll have to go see him about that then," she said, hardly believing this was happening. She really didn't want to waste any more time, but then she didn't want to seem too excited so she willed herself to stay a while longer. She took a sip from her drink and looked at the man beside her. "Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it."  
  
"No problem," he said after talking another swig of his drink. "The pleasure is all mine."  
  
Ten minutes later, Julia decided it was a good time to leave. She put down her drink, put her money on the table and got up when the man beside her stopped her.  
  
"You're going now?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, I figure I might as well go now, I don't want to risk your friend already leaving when I get there."  
  
"Well about that," he said, starting to stand up. "The men in the pool hall at this time of night don't take too welcoming to a beautiful woman such as youself strolling in so it would probably be best if I go with you."  
  
She was about to object, knowing she would be able to handle herself in a place like that, but then decided against it. 'It would probably be best if I carried him along' she thought 'It might make it easier for me to ask his friend questions with him there then me just coming alone as a stranger to him'  
  
She smiled. "Thanks," and waited while he drained the rest of his Scotch down and then followed her out the bar.  
  
They walked down the street in the cool night. "It's funny," the man said as they got nearer the pool hall, "All this time and we don't even know each other's names. My name's Dave."  
  
Julia wasn't too eager to let the guy know her name since he was still practcally a stranger, so she changed the subject. "Is that the place?" she asked.  
  
"Yeah," he said, and they arrived at the pool hall. It looked very dark and shady from the outside. The place had bad vibes emanating from it already. She kept her hand near her gun, which was by her waist hidden by her jacket, in case anything funny happened.  
  
"Not a popular place, I see," she muttered while looking around after they walked in, there was a strong smell of marijuana in the air, it was nearly deserted, and there were two men playing near the front, both of whom had stopped their game and were following Julia with hungry eyes as she passed.  
  
"Why don't you drop that loser and be my bitch?" One of the men drawled.  
  
"I'll give you ten woolongs for tha' piece of ass," the other one slurred.  
  
She ignored them and followed Dave toward the back of the pool hall, where there were three men playing.  
  
From where she left the two men in the front, she heard one of them say, "Give her ten woolongs? She'd probably give you two-hundred so she dosen't have to look at your ugly face."  
  
"Oh please, I could have her, easy."  
  
"Keep dreamin'."  
  
They then reached the group. "Hey Dave," one of the guys called to him.  
  
"Sup Louis," Dave said to the guy who called to him.  
  
"It's great that you're here," said Louis. "Now I'll be able to have a partner and play, and Tiger and Johnny here can stop monopolizing the pool table."  
  
"Yeah well before we do that, there's something I have to ask you, Tiger," he said to the one leaning against his pool stick.  
  
"Aren't you going to introduce us to your... friend, Dave?" The other one, obviously the one named Johnny, interrupted, looking flirtily at Julia.  
  
"That's what I want to talk about," he continued. "I told her that you had info on Spike Spiegel."  
  
"Oh, I see," Tiger said. "So you're looking for him?"  
  
"Yes," she answered. "Anything you can tell me would be highly appreciated."  
  
"Uh, huh," he said, smiling just a little too much for Julia's comfort. Hopefully he wasn't going to want anything in return, would he?  
  
"Tell you where Spiegel is," he said with sarcasm. "Dave, Johnny..." he gave a curt nod.  
  
The guys came at her. She drew out her gun and managed to shoot Johnny but missed when she shot at Dave since he was already close to her and he ducked her bullet and knocked her down. He tried to pin her down and the other guy got to them while the other one looked after the injured Johnny.  
  
Dave was struggling to get the gun out of her hand but then she got her other arm free and punched him in the face. He backed off a little bit but before she could do anything else, the other guy had put a gaseous smelling cloth over her nose and mouth and then she was out cold.  
  
-------------  
  
Julia's eyes slowly opened. Everything was blurry. Her head felt like it had been hit with a thousand bricks.  
  
"Ugh," she moaned. She was attempting to hold her head but her arms couldn't move. That was what really woke her up.  
  
"What the..." she tried to move her limbs but realized she was tied to a chair. She looked around and saw a figure in the corner of the room but she couldn't really see him because the room was kind of dim and her eyes were still blurry.  
  
She didn't have to guess for long because the shadow soon walked toward her.  
  
"Hello, sleeping beauty. Have a good rest?"  
  
'That voice' she thought. 'It's him'  
  
He came up in front of her.  
  
"Vicious," she said with disdain, "Why am I not suprised?"  
  
"I'm glad you remember me," he said smiling bitterly at her.  
  
She looked around. She was in a dark empty room. "What the hell's going on? Why have you brought me here?"  
  
"Well, there happens to be something that I want to do that I'm going to need your help with is all," he said, an evil glint in his eye.  
  
She then had a very bad feeling about this. "Oh? And what exactly is that supposed to be?"  
  
"Don't worry, you'll find out exactly how soon enough. Let's just say it's time for some people to pay for their betrayal..." he said while stroking his sword.  
  
She glared at him.  
  
"We were together," he continued. "Maybe you didn't care but I loved you very much. I would have done anything for you. I even believed those lies you told me that you were shopping or running some errand when you were really going to see him. Even when I saw you two together, I didn't believe, or maybe it was that I didn't want to believe that anything was going on. I never dreamed that the two people I loved most in the world would do something like that to me."  
  
"But then I saw you two that day, and then it finally dawned on me. People can't be trusted, and love is nothing but a silly emotion that only causes betrayal and pain in the end."  
  
"It wouldn't have mattered," Julia said quietly, looking down. "Our relationship would have ended anyway. We were drifting apart and you know it."  
  
"But you couldn't even give it a chance, that's the problem," he said angrily. "You couldn't even care enough." He then gave an evil smirk. "Now you will see how much it hurts to lose someone you love."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"Yes," he continued while pacing around. "This time I will make sure that Spiegel will pay... with his life," his crow started to rustle with excitement, probably getting the connection from it's owner of his intent desire to kill. "And you, Julia, will have to pay as well. First, you will see him dead and then you will join him. You two can then rot in hell together."  
  
"You know what," she said defiantly. "You can try whatever you want but it won't work. You couldn't get him before and you won't be able to get him now."  
  
He crouched down to her level. "Maybe so, but how would things turn out if YOU were the one to kill him?"  
  
Before she could respond, he gave her a long hard kiss. Since she was restrained, she couldn't pull away like she had so badly wanted to.  
  
He got up. "Until then, my lovely Julia," he said acidly.  
  
She kept up her glare at him and it wasn't until he was about to walk away that she remembered what she was going to say right before he kissed her.  
  
"What do you mean, me kill him?"  
  
No response.  
  
"Answer me, dammit! What the hell do you mean if I kill him? Where are you going with this?!"  
  
"All will be revealed soon enough."  
  
"Wait!!!" Too late, he was already gone. "Damn..." 'What does he mean if I am the one to kill him? What could he be planning? There's one thing for sure, I've got to do whatever it takes to keep his plan from working. I just hope I'm able to stop him in time...'  
  
For the next couple of hours she sat there trying to figure a way out of her imprisonment when the door opened.  
  
A man walked in and she immediately recognized him as the guy who had deceived her: Dave.  
  
He smiled at her. "So we meet again," he said.  
  
She glared at him. "Looks like your little plan went perfectly, didn't it?" she said bitterly.  
  
"Yeah, except for that shot you got out of Johnny and that shiner you gave me everything went fine," he said, gingerly touching his already purple right eye. "Anyway there's just the next phase of the plan that needs to be done now."  
  
She really didn't want to talk to him but she felt that she might as well try and and attempt to get some info out of him. She had nothing to lose anyway.  
  
"Oh really?" she asked nonchalantly. "And just what is this 'next phase' supossed to be anyway?"  
  
"Nothing to worry your pretty head about," he said, coming closer. Oh well, she tried.  
  
"As a matter of fact, I have something for you that will make you intead feel hella good." She then saw something in his hand that she immediately recognized as a syringe.  
  
"This baby right here has the power to make you relax and forget everything," he said, while preparing her arm for the needle.  
  
She glared at him. "You mean in other words in order to keep me from thinking of escaping this hellhole."  
  
"To save you from wasting time and energy, I'll tell you right now that there is no way you can escape this place. At least not alive anyway," He stuck the needle in her arm. "If I were in your situation, I would be happy that I was getting drugs to forget my problems. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to spend my last few days worring about my inevitable death if I didn't have to."  
  
'As if things couldn't get any worse... Now I wont even be able to think of a way to escape or be able to think straight for that matter. I'm so screwed...'  
  
"That should be enough..." he mumbled to himself as he took the needle out of her arm. Julia thought sardonically to herself how funny it would be if he didn't know what the hell he was doing.  
  
"Okay," he said as he walked away. "Now, I think it's time you got something to eat." He left the room.  
  
Almost instantly, her muscles felt weak and her head felt foggy. She groaned. 'I need to get out of this place before these nutcases turn my brain into mush'  
  
---end flashback---  
  
-------------  
  
Spike looked at her pleading face and had a hard time saying what was next: "I have to, Julia... don't worry, I will be okay," he held her hands in his. "Everything will be fine, I promise."  
  
"But you don't know that for sure, what if you get hurt?"  
  
He sighed. He knew she was right, but it didn't affect him from making up his mind. "You know I won't be able to relax until I know for sure that we're out of danger."  
  
She let go of his hands and looked away. "Even if it means your life?"  
  
Spike didn't have an answer for her question.  
  
---  
  
Well, whaddaya think? Please click on the review button and let me know

Julia: 'pouts' You made me such an idiot in this fic, I don't like you anymore!

Me: Well excuse me, I had to do the best I could with what little I knew about you from the show and what I needed for my fic so I had to make do... gomen...

Julia: Hmph! 'walks away'

Me: Hope you enjoyed the fic and please review!


	5. The plan, revisited

-Twisted Thing Called Love-

-smiles sweetly- Hello everyone. How are all of you? I am here to bring you the 5th installment of "Twisted Thing Called Love." Now-

Spike: Shame on you, Naomi! Shame shame! How could you let these nice people wait so long? Don't you even care?!

Me: -sobs- I do! I do! I'm so sorry everyone! My writer's block is really going to be the end of me!

Spike: Well that's still no excuse

Me: I know... -sniff- Well hey, ya know what, I'm already almost halfway through with the next chapter. I'm gonna try really hard to bang that one out beforethe monthis over

Spike: Bang out? That just dosen't sound right...

Me: -smacks him- Ugh, you dirty hentai, I didn't mean it like that!!! Anyway, thanks for not giving up on me and coming to read this fic

Spike: -rubbing his cheek- You mean if they are still here...

Me: Spike, I'm warning you... Anyway, for the disclaimer I dont own Cowboy Bebop. It belongs to it's respective owners. But I do own the characters Erin and Jin. Yay! I own something!

Spike: -says sarcastically- Wow, you own a crazy onna and a gaki. Yeah, you own alot...

Me: grr... That's enough out of you, now zip your lip! -His lips are zipped- Hehe I love my authoress powers. Anyway, I want to thank **Faye valentine** and **ninalee-chan **for their reviews! And don't worry **ninalee-chan**, Faye definitely won't be moping around much longer in this fic as you will soon find out. This chapter finally completes the whole mystery from the beginning and everything, it should be good. Umm oh yeah, this: '...' is when the character is thinking and "----------" reprsents a scene change. For some reason, I'm not able to put up the little star symbols anymore. Okay well, read and please review when you're through! Enjoy

Spike: mmmmmmmmmpppphhhhhhhhhh!!!!

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Chapter Five: The Plan, Revisited

Julia found herself walking down a dark passageway. The only light source available was from an open door at the end of the tunnel. 'Where am I? How did I get here?' All she could hear were the sound of her own footsteps, echoing off the empty walls.

Then she saw a figure walking in her direction from the room ahead. She couldn't quite tell who it was from so far a distance until she walked a couple more steps and then realized who it was.

'It's Spike. What is he doing here?' she thought. 'Oh well, it dosen't matter as long as he's here' "Spike!!!" she called out.

He looked ahead. "Julia, is that you?"

She started running towards him. "Yes, it's me," she called out.

He walked faster toward her. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

She didn't know how to respond. "I... I don't know how I got here, I..." she faltered. She was a bit dissapointed at his comment. 'We haven't been together in so long. Does it really matter how I got here anyway?'

He stopped. "Julia, what are you doing here?" he repeated.

She was starting to get upset by his weird behavior that she didn't notice the figure stealthily sneaking up behind him. She stopped running. "Does it matter how I got here anyway?! Don't you even care that we're finally together?!"

"It's not that Julia, it's just-" All of a sudden the figure jumped up and pulled out a sword.

"Oh no Spike, watch out!!!"

He turned around, but it was too late. The figure thrust the sword into his chest. The sword shortly reflected light on his face and she was able to tell who he was. He looked up at Julia.

"Now you will know what true suffering is," he said, smirking evilly. "I'll be coming for you later." He laughed and then started to walk away.

Everything happened so fast. She couldn't believe what had just happened. Then it all came rushing to her too painfully. The fact that Spike was now bleeding to death by the hand of-

"Viscous!!! Damn you!!!" she screamed. She reched for her gun, but she didn't have it with her. "Kuso.." she mumbled.

Viscous turned around. "What're you going to do about it? I thought so." He laughed again and then continued to walk away.

She ran over to Spike. "Spike, please stay with me. Please.. I can't lose you now."

He smiled faintly at her. "Don't worry sweetheart... I'll always be with you..." he coughed up some blood.

She took off her sweater and pressed it against his wound, hoping to slow down the blood flow. "Don't say that Spike," she said, tears flowing from her eyes.

Spike lifted up his arm and slowly wiped some of the tears from her cheek. "No need to cry Julia, I'll be fine." She took his hand. She knew that what was to happen was now inevitable.

"I love you Spike," she said.

"I love you too Julia, now and forever..." he said and then his eyes slowly closed.

She continued to hold him against her and wept. "Ja ne, Spike... till we meet again..." she whispered.

She opened her eyes and looked around. 'So it was just a dream' she thought while looking around the small room. Her vision was blurry and her cheeks were wet from crying in her sleep. 'It seemed so real, everything looked and felt so vivid...even holding Spike in my arms and the way he touched me felt so real...'

She was taken out of her reverie when she heard footsteps coming toward the door. "Here we go again," she sighed.

The door slowly opened and a young man about the age of 17 with short black hair and blue eyes walked into the room. He was tall, very cute, and had a medium, lean build. "Long time no see, Julia," he said, smiling.

Julia couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Jin, is that you?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Yeah," he said, while he went to lock the door.

"You look so different with shorter hair and you've grown so much," she said, staring at him, forgetting for a moment where she was.

"Yeah well..." he blushed and looked at his shoes. Then he looked back up at her guiltily. "This is so awkward Julia... look, I'm so sorry that all this had to happen. Things just got out of hand."

"This is not your fault, Jin. Viscous must be stopped."

"I know," Jin said, clenching his fists.. "He's gone too far this time."

"I don't underatand, Jin. Why are you still with him? Viscious is not the same man he used to be, you're only putting yourself in danger by staying in the syndicate. Weren't you able to leave?"

He sighed and then nodded. "After Viscous destroyed the members of the van and took over, he completely changed everything and gave the remaining members the choice to either leave or to serve him and the syndicate. Some left because they didn't want to be part of the new syndicate, and the others stayed, some because they wanted to be loyal to the will of the van, even though they're gone, and to the brotherhood. The others stayed because they wanted to be in the syndicate under Viscous' rule, to be loyal to him."

She nodded. "So I've heard," she said. "So why don't you get out of this now Jin? While you still can?"

"Look Julia, I am one of those people who chose be loyal to Viscous; there's no way I'm going to leave him now," he walked over to a chair and sat down.

"There's no sense in staying with him now Jin; that man has no honor, look at what he's doing to me and Spike. He's just using his power for his own benefit, it's pointless."

Jin put his head in his hands. "I didn't expect you to understand Julia, and I know you probably never will. But I don't need you to. Viscous saved me. When I had no one, nothing, he came along and took care of me. When other people couldn't be bothered with me, he saw my potential and helped me to become better. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't know what where I would be. So that's why I will be always there for him, like he was for me."

"What about Spike? Are you just going to forget everything he's done for you as well? So you're just going to let him die because of your damn loyalty to Viscous!?!

"Damn it Julia, it's not like that!" he shot back. He then paused to calm down and then talked with an even tone. "It's not like I don't appreciate all the things that you and Spike have done for me as well. You guys are all like family to me. I certainly don't wan't any of you to die. I just wish it never had to come to this. We were all so close." he hung his head and looked at the floor.

"Well... things change, Jin. People change. That's life." She didn't know what else to say to him. 'He's such a sweet boy. It's a shame he has to go through all of this'

He looked up. "Well anyway, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said, brightening up. "I've figured out a plan for your escape."

-------------

"Julia" was in the bedroom reading a book when Spike walked in. She looked at Spike over the top of the book she was reading. It took a lot of persuasion, but she was finally able to stop him from running out to find Vicious, though she didn't know how long it would be until he did it anyway. Then her cell phone started to ring.

She took it from the bedside table and was about to answer it when she saw that it was the name of "Bob" on the screen and gasped. (A/N: She dubbed Vicious by the name of Bob so if Spike happened to see it he wouldn't find it suspicious)

Spike looked over at her after he took off his shirt. "What's wrong?"

"Ummm... nothing," she said, blushing sligtly. 'I could never get tired of seeing him take his clothes off.....' she thought, momentarily forgetting about the phone ringing.

He continued to stare at her and then looked at her phone. "...Aren't you gonna get that?"

She looked down on her phone. "Umm, no... it's this annoying guy named Bob. Better not to answer the phone, y'know?" She lied.

He raised an eyebrow. "So you say this guy is bothering you, huh? You need me to take care of it?"

"Oh no, it's nothing like that, it's just that I met him a while back when I was looking for you but now he just calls sometimes to talk and well, he's not the best person to be talking to if you know what I mean," she said, when the phone alterted that she had a message.

"So what, this guy knows me?" He scratched his head. "I don't think I know of a Bob... hmm... I do know a Rob, but the name Bob I don't recall... maybe I could have forgotten, I mean, it is a common name but-"

"That's the thing, he dosen't know you," she rushed in, exasperated at the fact that Spike wouldn't let this thing go. "I found out he was lying, so that was it."

He looked at her for a moment and then shrugged. "Ok then," he said and went into the bed with only his boxers on. "Julia, if this guy is bothering you, why don't you just get your number changed?"

"You know, Spike, that's exactly what I'm going to do," she said while getting out of the bed. "I'll be right back."

He watched her run out the room. "Where's she running off to?" he muttered.

-------------

"What do you mean?" Julia asked, having lost pretty much all hope of escape.

"I'm going to help you escape this place Julia, I have it all figured out," Jin said, his smile not fading.

"How can I ever escape this place without getting caught, it just doesn't seem possible," she said, still not too convinced.

"Don't worry about those guys, they're a bunch of idiots," Jin said, waving them off, "Some of them don't even agree with what Viscous is doing either, they're just too afraid to admit it to him."

"About what he did," Julia inquired, "He told me that I was going to kill Spike. What was he talking about? Does it mean he's going to brainwash me or something?"

He sighed, "No. He's thought up a very elaborate way of getting revenge. He didn't tell me anything, but I overheard some of the guys talking about it. It seems that he had hired someone to be you to kill Spike."

She stared at him in shock. "What the hell? What do you mean hire someone to be me? That doesn't even make any sense."

He got up and looked out the door to see if there was anyone nearby and then came back and sat down. "Okay, this is what I believe happened. It seems that Viscous had hired this woman, Erin, to do this. He really went too far though. He had reconstructive surgery done on her so she would look identical to you, and he had your memories scanned into her mind so she would know everything you knew, felt, sensed, everything. He wanted her to be well prepared so Spike would think she was you. Then she was to lure him to her, play with his mind for a while, and when she had him exactly where she wanted him..... that would be when she would... kill him."

They were silent for a while. Then Julia finally spoke. "Jin.. did she already..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.

He sighed and put his head in his hands again. "I wish I could tell you but I honestly don't know... "

"Oh," she said, feeling completely helpless about the situation at this point.

He looked up. "But there seems to be something going wrong. Erin was supposed to have contacted Viscous a couple of days ago, but so far nothing. He tried to call her but she wouldn't answer her cell. He's getting pissed about it and sent some of the guys to go after her and see what's up. He knows there's something very wrong since she knows she can't get the rest of her payment without completing her mission, so maybe it hasn't gone through yet... I don't know..."

Julia went over what he said over and over in her mind. 'So she hasn't contacted Viscous. What does that mean? Maybe she decided not to go through with it again, knowing how cruel it was. Or maybe Spike realized she wasn't me when she was about to kill him and killed her first, maybe... There are so many things that could have happened, but at least it isn't confirmed that she killed him yet.' "Well that's enough to give me hope... that's all I have left..."

"Shit... I am so angry at Viscous for doing this. I know that he feels a lot of hatred toward you two, but this is just going way too far," He looked straight into Julia's eyes. "He may have gotten what he wanted by killing Spike, and I wasn't able to stop that, but I'll be dammed if I let him kill you too."

"Jin, you see how crazy and irrational he is, why do you refuse to leave the syndicate? He is not the same man he used to be, believe me I know. The only person he cares about now is himself. You know I'm right. Why go through with this?"

He sighed again and looked away. "You just don't know when to drop something, do you?"

"I'm just trying to look out for you, Jin. I really care about you. I just want you to be safe, that's all."

He frowned. "Thanks for your concern but I can look out for myself. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a little kid anymore, Julia," he said irritatedly.

"I didn't mean it like that, it's just, well I've known you since you were a little kid, can you blame me? There is so much for you out there instead of doing this, you'll only get into trouble if you stay here."

He got up again and looked outside the door, ignoring her. "Look, I don't have time for this, the guys will be back soon. Listen, about the plan. This is how it's going to go down. I found out that Viscious is leaving tomorrow and alot of the other guys will be out looking for Erin. Before they leave I will come in to give you the drug injection. Only it won't be drugs but a fake, the stuff is harmless but it looks identical to the real thing. This will be so they think that everything is under control. When the coast is clear, I will untie you and you can escape. You'll be out and gone before any of the guys notice anything," he turned to her. "What do you think?"

"It sounds like a great plan, Jin," she said, her once dashed hopes building up again. "Like it could really work."

He looked out the door again. "Oh crap, the guys are coming. Look, I'm going to inject you with the fake, ok? Try your best to looked like you've been drugged. You can consider this as... practice," he said, walking towards her while taking out the needle.

"Ummm, you do know how to inject people, right? Just out of curiosity," she said, looking at the needle with a bit of doubt.

"Of course. You may find it hard to believe, but I have done this before," he said, while taking out her arm. "This may hurt a bit."

"Yeah, I'm used to it," she said as she waited for the usual pinch to occur.

-------------

Erin walked out into the kitchen and listened to her message from Viscous. "Erin...this is the fifth message I am leaving you and I haven't received any calls. If I find you didn't go through with this, you will seriously regret it. That's a promise." -click-

She leaned against the counter. 'He sounds pissed... if he finds out what really happened I will be added on his hit list for sure... I have to get the hell out of here so it will be harder for him to find me... Shit I should have done this long ago...' she was so preoccupied that she didn't notice Spike coming.

"What's wrong, Julia?" he asked, seeing the scared look on her face.

She looked at him. 'Damn, what's he doing here?' "I'm fine, it's just that I saw a rat and it scared me," she again lied.

"I thought rats didn't scare you," he said looking around for it. "Or at least they never used to."

'Shit, I forgot, Julia isn't scared of those things, damn how could I let that slip?!' "Well you see," she said, trying to cover up her slip, "it was so close to me that it like practically jumped in front of my face, it shocked me."

"How come I didn't hear you scream though?" he asked, still searching for the culprit, "Where did you last see it? No trace of a rat here."

She was getting frustrated by him giving her the third degree. "It probably left, the window was open."

Spike slowly got up and stared her straight in the eyes. "You know, it's funny. It dosent seem like there was a rat in here because they usually leave droppings somewhere. I don't see any around here."

She was getting nervous. "How do you know it didn't leave it somewhere else? Like maybe in a cabinet or something?"

He continued staring straight at her. "And how about you cut the crap and tell me what's really going on?"

"What are you talking about, I'm not lying. The rat-"

"Dammit Julia, don't lie to me," he cut her off, getting upset. "What's really going on? I know it had something to do with that phone call."

She sighed, defeated and ran her hand through her hair. "Okay. This guy, Bob... well... he's not exactly only annoying me..." she said, quickly making up another lie. "I got a message from him saying that when he found me, he was going to kill me... and that he knows where I live. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to scare you but I'm really worried about what he's going to do now." 'Please buy it' she mentally pleaded.

His frown softened. "Why didn't you just tell me?" he asked and went over to embrace her. "Sure I will freak out but I think I have a right to know. Why does he want to kill you?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking," she said while holding on to him, "I did some bounty hunting a while back and got him locked up. He started to harass me when he escaped from prison but he sounds really serious now, I'm so scared..."

"You don't have to be, I'll stop him," Spike said as he let go.

She looked into his eyes while playing in his hair. "Actually, I have a better idea. Let's run away together. Just like you always wanted."

Spike looked skeptical. "Are you sure this is what you want? You didn't want to last time. I could just take care of him for you, it wouldn't be a problem."

"No, this is the best way, believe me," she said, and gave him a soft kiss. "Besides, I changed my mind. I think it will be fun and romantic."

He smiled. "Okay, sure. When do you want to leave?"

Her expression got serious. "First thing tomorrow morning."

-----

Well, what do you think? Please review...


	6. The escape

Twisted Thing Called Love

Me: Hello again, readers. This is the moment you've all been waiting for, the time when Julia finally escapes! -The place is silent- Or maybe not, as much as I know many of you would like her to rot in there it's important that she does escape... as you shall all see -wink- Anyway, this chapter is filled with a little hope, a little sadness, and a little of everything inbetween. Hope you all enjoy and please review. Due to the mutiny going on with the characters against me, I have decided to do the entire intro on my own.

Viscious: Oh, is that right?

Me: What are you doing here, Visicous? Go away, I'm doing the intro now.

Viscious: But I wanna do it. I've been waiting patiently for my turn and I wanna go now -pouts-

Me: Are you serious? O.O

Viscious: Yes, I am.

Me: ... fine. -.-' Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Viscious. Take it away -leaves-

Viscious: Naomi-chan does not own Cowboy Bebop. It belongs to it's respective owners. However, she does own the characters Erin and Jin. And now.. without further ado, I will perform a song. -Is all of a sudden in a teapot costume- Ahem... -The music starts and he starts to dance and sings- I'm a little teapot short and stout, here is my head and here is my-

Me: -Runs out- WTF! I knew I shouldn't have let him do this! -Kicks him off the stage- I'm so sorry you all had to see that horrifying display there. I only hope that this dosen't tarnish his bad name.

Spike: I knew there was something funny about that guy...

Me: Shut up, you! Anyway, a big thanks goes out to **Venusgurl5** for her review. Keep the reviews coming, guys! Enjoy :)

* * *

They walked into the tiny apartment. Erin spun around while smiling. "Isn't this wonderful, Spike? We can be free of everything and only have each other. I really should have listened to you and done this a long time ago."

Spike looked around while taking out his pack of cigarettes. "It's nice and everything, but do you think it was necessary to come all the way here to Venus?"

"Of course, Spike. Here we can leave our pasts behind and start fresh. Just you and me, it will be perfect!" Then she took her bags and brought them into their room. She sat on the bed and relished in her thoughts 'This really is perfect, I wish I had only done it sooner. Now that I've left Mars and got my number changed, it will be nearly impossible for Viscious to find me! Me and Spike can really live our lives here and everything will be perfect! I love Spike and I love being Julia. Now that the real Julia is out of the way I can take her place and be with him forever'

Spike took a puff of his cigarette and looked out the window. 'Something about this dosen't feel right. I feel horrible, this is the moment I have been dreaming about since the second I parted with her, but this just feels wrong. Something is off about her, the whole situation. I keep feeling like she's hiding something from me, and then I feel bad about being suspicious' He then berated himself. 'I need to stop being so paranoid, she's right. Everything will be perfect now that we are together'

* * *

Julia was nervous. This was the day of her escape. As the minutes ticked by, she kept going through the details of the plan over and over in her mind. She looked out the tiny window and from what she could see it was around dusk. It was getting late. He would soon come. 

She didn't have too long to wait becuase about forty minutes later, the door started to open.

Jin walked in, first looking behind him outside the door to see if he was being followed. He then came in and looked at her and smiled assuringly. Before he could say anything, the door opened again.

"What are you doing, kid?" Tiger said while pushing Jin aside and snatching the drugs out of his hand. "I don't trust you," he said and made his way towards Julia. "Who's to say that you might not even give her the drugs at all?"

Jin glared at Tiger. "Of course I was going to give them to her!" he said but behind his back he looked at Julia and gave her a little smile, assuring her that the drugs that Tiger was to give her were indeed the fake.

"Well we all know how close you two were. We wouldn't want you to go all soft and jeopardize this whole setup. I'm sure Viscious would agree with me." He took Julia's arm and proceeded to inject her.

Julia knew what she had to do and prepared to act as if she had been drugged. 'It's a good thing that Jin made a fake drug instead of not giving me anything at all. Who would have thought that Tiger would take over the job of drugging me? I can't do anything to make him more suspicious'

As the chemical went into her system, Tiger kept looking at her with that creepy smile. "It will all be over soon, wench. It's only a matter of time," he stood up and started to walk away. Julia then took her cue and put a dazed expression on her face.

Tiger glanced back at her and smiled and then left the room. Jin stayed back and looked at her and mouthed the words, "I'm coming back soon." And then he walked out of the room.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the sound of the door opening took Julia out of her thoughts. Jin took another look outside the door, and came in. 

"Are you ready?" he whispered as he came over to untie her.

"Yeah, it's now or never," she said. 'This is it' she thought.

He started to untie her. "It definitely is. Most of the guys are gone, including that asshole Tiger," he said his name in disdain. "Anyway, the few that are here are just jerking off. This is the best time to leave." He finished untying her and went towards the door.

Julia got up and was so relieved to be able to stretch out her limbs that she momentarily forgot about escaping. "Julia, come on," he said as he waited impatiently by the door.

"Sorry," she said and followed him out the door.

They walked quietly down the passageway. Julia didn't know her way in that place in the least, since the last time she did go thorough there was when she was knocked out. And she was pretty scared about the whole situation though she would never admit it to herself. So she looked around her while they were walking and unconsciously slipped her arm around his.

This sudden movement startled Jin. Fortunately for him she didn't notice that or how red his face was. 'She's holding on to me... she must be very nervous. She'll probably never know how I really feel about her... but I swear I won't let her down. I will do everything in my power to help her escape even though it's possible I may never see her again' He gave her a warm smile. "Don't worry, everything will work out, I promise."

She returned his smile and tried to calm herself down. It wasn't that she was afraid of leaving the place, she'd been through worse. It was the possibility that Spike might be dead that really frightened her. 'Calm down, Julia. Jin is right, you've gotta have some faith'

They found themselves in a large room. "This leads to outside," he said, pointing to the double doors ahead. "There's a ship waiting for you out there," He gave her the keys and then he took a small package out of his pocket and also gave it to her. "This is the CD with all the info that Viscious had on Spike. This should help you in your search. I hope you find what you are looking for."

She took them. "I can't thank you enough for all your help, Jin. I could never dream of getting this far without you," she hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. After they parted, he looked at her, his face a deep crimson, his feelings for her wanting to expose itself. "Julia, I..." he stopped himself before he made that mistake. She looked at him. "What is it, Jin?" Before he could say anything though, he caught a glimpse of a man pointing his gun at them out of the corner of his eye and had just enough time to duck out of the line of fire, taking Julia down with him just missing the gun shots.

They quickly sprinted toward a wall and hid behind it. "Looks like the sendoff party is here," Jin muttered, while taking out his gun. 'Damn, I was hoping it would have been easier than this'

The man came out of the shadows. "Why am I not suprised? I knew you couldn't be trusted," he spat while aiming his gun at them. "Well the same mistake won't be made twice."

Jin quickly looked out at him from behind the wall and shot at him.

Julia saw another man from the other side aiming his gun at Jin and shot him before he could shoot Jin. He looked at her. "Nice save."

She shot at another guy on the second story balcony. "No problem."

They looked around and ran through the double doors outside toward the ship, looking out for any thugs that might be along the way.

They reached the ship but Julia hesitated before going in. "Jin, why don't you come with me? There is no purpose staying here now. Just leave this place and start a new life away from the syndicate. Please come," she pleaded. Jin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, five gun shots silenced him. He choked, blood pouring from his mouth, and fell to the ground.

Julia was in shock. It was like an outer body experience as she screamed, "Jin!" and blew the sniper's head off with her gun. She knelt beside him, trying to stop the incessant bleeding. "Jin, no... you can't die..." she said softly, tears streaming from her eyes. He put a hand on hers, stopping her from trying to do the impossible task of saving his life.

"Julia..." he said weakly, using the last bit of strength he had to talk, "go now... before anyone else comes..."

"I'm not going anywhere, Jin! I can't just leave you here to die, I-"

"Just go," he said quite sternly. "If they stop you then this would have all been for nothing." He coughed up some more blood. "Don't worry about me..."

"Jin..." she said, not really wanting to leave his side. But then she looked in his eyes and knew that what he said was true and that she had to go. She leaned down and gave him a kiss on his forehead and then whispered, "What was it that you wanted to tell me earlier?"

He smiled at her and then closed his eyes. She kissed him again. "Goodbye, Jin," she whispered and then went into the ship. Deep inside, she knew what it was that he wanted to say.

He lay there and while the last of his life drained out of him, he whispered, "I love you..."

* * *

Viscious busted down the door to Erin's apartment and walked inside. The scene before him made him want to grab the nearest living thing and kill it. The apartment was completely uninhabited. He growled and punched a hole in the wall, burning with fury. 'So she thinks she can escape me now, does she' he thought. "You can hide from me but I **will** find you. And when I do, I will have you begging me to kill you before I let you join Spike and Julia in hell." 

Then his phone rang and he answered it. "What is it?" he asked angrily.

The guy's gulp could almost be heard from the other line before he said, "Sir... There seems to be a problem..."

His voice was eerily calm. "What do you mean, a problem?"

The guy paused and then stated, "Well, it seems the captive has escaped..."

"What!" Viscious screamed angrily. He then said calmly but dangerously, "If you do not find her before I get back, you do not want to know what I have in store for you. Make sure everyone else gets the message."

"Y-yes, sir-" Viscious hung up on him.

'They will not ruin my plans,' he thought furiously. 'That's what I get for letting some stupid bitch do the job for me, if I want to get something done, I'm going to have to do it myself'

"I will get my revenge one every one of you," he growled. "I will personally see to it that you all get sent to hell." For added effect, he slashed a remaining table in half and then walked out.

* * *

Faye walked out of the police station putting her freshly deposited 100,000 wulong bounty award money in her purse. 'Hehe there's so much I can do with all this money... Maybe I might actually be able to hit it big this time in the casino, or maybe the horse race... And those stupid idiots never believed I could do this on my own' She then dismissed the growing feelings of sadness for one of those said "idiots" and walked to her ship. "Whatever, I'm better off without him anyway." Then her cell phone started to ring. She answered it. "What?" "Faye?" Jet's voice asked, "Where are you?" She scoffed. "Why do you care all of a sudden?" "Come back to the ship, there's something important you need to know." "Why should I go anywhere?" she said stubornly. "Just get your ass back here," he said agitatedly and then hung up. 

'Who does he think he is, like I'm going to just do what he says, that jerk' However, she then got in her ship, destined for Bebop, never admtting it to herself but feeling relieved that Jet wanted her to come back.

* * *

Spike took out his cell phone and looked through the phone list. 'Maybe I should give them a call, it's been a while. Just to let them know I'm alive and whatnot' He then stopped when he reached Faye's cell number. 'I wonder how she's been. Maybe I should give her a call, it's been so long since I last heard her voice' He stopped and contemplated it. 'I wonder if she misses me, or if she even cares I'm gone. She probably dosen't. What happened that night before I left, she was just vulnerable, it didn't mean anything, nothing at all' He was then interrupted from his thoughts when a certain fake blonde entered the room. 

"Spike, what's wrong? You look down," she said, while walking over to him. "Oh, it's nothing," he said while putting the phone back in his pocket and smiled at her. "C'mon baby,' she said, taking his hand and leading him to the bedroom.

An hour later, she was asleep and he was sitting up, smoking a cigarette. For some reason, all throughout their intimacy, he couldn't get his mind off of a particular raven-haired someone. 'I wonder if Faye is with another guy now' he thought, and he felt anger starting to rise. 'Yeah, she probably is. How could she go and do that, after all we've been through?' He then stopped himself again. 'Wait a minute. Why the hell am I so paranoid? Why should I care if she is with another guy anyway? If that's what she wants to do then its none of my business. Besides, I'm with the woman I love, what am I fussing about?' However, he still couldn't get her out of his mind.

* * *

Faye got out of her ship and walked toward the inside of the Bebop. For some reason, thoughts of Spike she couldn't stop from thinking about entered her mind. 'I wonder if he misses me?' She gave a short laugh. 'Right, he's with the woman he loves and he's thinking about me? Girl, you've definitely gotta stop that 'whole wishful thinking' thing, it's pointless. He's probably in bed with her right now, smoking a cigarette, thinking about how good he has it' She walked in the living room, and the sight she saw was too shocking for words. On the floor, was Ed on the computer, as usual. On the couch was Jet but sitting beside him was none other than- 

"You must be Faye," the blonde got up from her spot and bowed. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Julia."

Faye was speechless. Then she finally got out, "What are you doing here?"

Jet had a grim look on his face. Julia also had a sad look on her face.

"It's Spike," she said. "He's in grave danger."

* * *

Well, that'sall for now. Hope you all enjoyed it, ja ne! 


	7. Pushed over the edge

Hello everyone, sorry for the long wait but I finally have chapter seven up for you all! See, I told ya I was working on it. I even made it extra long to make ammends (wink)

Well, to start off, I'd like to thank **sikiy** and **K9** **girl** for their reviews. Reviews are what sustains me! lol Also, as a side note, I want to confess that even though I've been a long time fan of Bebop, for some reason I'm having a hard time remembering the value of a woololng and what the crew considers a "big bounty" so please, just bear with me in case the numbers sound too low or too high to you. I know I should be ashamed for not knowing but now you have been warned.

Last note: '...' means thinking. Enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Seven: Pushed over the edge 

Faye had trouble sorting through what was going on. "What are you talking about?" she demanded, "Where is he?"

Julia sighed and ran her hands through her hair in worry. "I have no idea."

"You're not making any sense, isn't he supossed to be with you?" she snapped at Julia.

Jet got up. "Faye, he was never with Julia this whole time," he said, "He was with someone who he thinks is Julia, who's really an assassin who's been hired to kill him."

"What? I don't get it," she said in confusion. "Why would someone want to do that? Wait... don't tell me..." she said in realization and then walked over to the couch and put her head in her hands. "Is it... Viscious?"

Julia clenched her fists. "Yes, he's the sick bastard that spawned this idea. He had me locked up while he hired an assassin to get cosmetic surgery so she would look like me. Then he sent her to Spike to make him think that she was me, and then she was to kill him, then Viscious would kill me. That's how he planned to get rid of the both of us."

Faye looked up. "Well I know Spike can be really dense, but don't you think he would eventually realize that she isn't you?"

"It's not that simple," Julia said as she sat down beside Faye. "Viscious anticipated all of this. He had my memories and life history and even my personality scanned into her mind so she would know everything that I know. She was manufactured to become a second me. He went all the way, without leaving a detail behind."

She sighed. "I just hope that despite all that, he still realizes that she isn't me. I know she may seem to be me, down to the memories and everything, but I hope he just knows deep down that she's a fake."

"We tried to get into contact with him," Jet said as he sighed and leaned against the wall. "He must have changed his cell number or something."

'Why would he do that? Unless they already killed him and wanted to get rid of the evidence...' Faye looked at her fearfully. "Do you know if she already..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.

"I don't know," Julia responded sadly. "Anything could have happened. All I know is that she hasn't gotten back to Viscious yet. I just hope it didn't go through."

"Well if there's even the slightest chance that he's still alive, we need to take action," Jet said. "Julia, do you know where they are?"

She sighed again. "No, I don't," she said and then took the CD out of her pocket and looked at it. "I only have the information on him prior to this whole mess." She looked at them. "When he was here with you."

Jet got up. "I'm sure we can track him down," he said and then walked over to Ed. "We just happen to have one of the best hackers in the galaxy with us."

Julia's somber expression lightened. "Really? That's great, where is he?"

Jet put his hand on Ed's shoulder. "She's right here."

"Jet person!" Ed exclaimed and then threw her arms around him.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked skeptically while she watched Jet struggle desperately to unwrap Ed's arms from around his legs.

He laughed nervously. "Hehe... well she may not look like too much right now, but this is the famous "Radical Edward" I'm sure you've heard about."

"Really? That's her? Wait a minute, "Radical Edward" is a little girl!"

Jet finally managed to get Ed's arms off of him. "Yes she is," he replied. "Now Ed, it's time to get serious and see if you can track down Spike for us. Think you can do it?"

"Hai hai, captain," she responded and went back to Tomato and started typing furiously.

* * *

"...and that's basically how it happened," Julia said and then put her head in her hands. "I feel horrible. This whole thing is my fault." 

"Don't worry, Julia. I'm sure we're gonna find him," Jet said and then got up. "Would you like some tea?"

She lifted her head up. "No thanks."

Jet walked over to Ed, who was deep in concentration. "How are you comin' along, Ed?"

"Gooowwwaaaayyyyyy," she whined softly as she gently swatted him away with her foot.

Jet sweatdropped and smiled. "Looks like things are on the up and up here, I would say."

Julia smiled at that and then said, "I want to thank you all for your help, I really appreciate it."

"Sure, it's no problem," Jet said and then he looked over at Faye to see what she was thinking. 'Faye has been very quiet,' he thought. Faye looked like she was in some sort of a daze. 'She dosen't look like she's taking this well at all.'

"It's getting late. I'm going to be on my way now," Julia said as she got up. "Thanks again for all your help."

Jet got up as well. "Okay, we'll inform you if anything happens."

"Thanks, here's my cell number." As she gave Jet her cell number, Faye numbly walked to her room and sat on her bed, still trying to deal with the news. 'I can't believe it. Spike is in danger and he could possibly be dead by now' "I may never see him again..." The tears came to her eyes. "I never even got the chance to tell him how I feel..."

* * *

They were laying in the bed and she was in his arms. Spike looked down at her lying on his chest. She had her eyes closed and was smiling in contentment. He kept staring at her. Then she looked up at him, still smiling. 

'She is so beautiful' he thought to himself. 'I could get lost just looking into her eyes'

"What is it?" she asked and then laughed.

"Just looking at how beautiful you are," he said as he stroked her hair.

She sighed and then put her head back on his chest. "I'm so glad we can be together now."

He put his other arm around her. "I wish we got together sooner, but I will try to make up for lost time. I just want to hold you in my arms forever and never let go."

"You've made me so happy, Spike," She lifted her head again, and leaned over to kiss him.

"With you, Faye, I finally feel complete," he said as he leaned in closer as well.

The two were about to kiss when-

His eyes slowly opened and he blinked and then looked down and saw Erin lying on his chest instead. He rubbed his eyes and sighed.

'It was a dream' he thought. 'One of the many dreams I've been having about Faye lately. What does that mean?' He looked down again at the locks of blonde hair on his chest instead of purple hair he could have sworn was there only minutes ago and then shook his head. 'It's nothing, I like Faye and I even think she's beautiful but that dosen't mean I love her or anything. She means a lot to me and all but only as a friend. Julia is the one I love, we were destined to be together'

He then settled back down on his pillow and closed his eyes. 'I'm with the one I love, I am complete' However, deep down he somehow didn't feel as convinced with those words as he would have liked to. Trying to shake off all of those thoughts altogether, he tried to go back to sleep.

* * *

Jet looked over at Faye. She was sprawled out on the couch, filing her nails. Yesterday she was acting quite strangely when she found out about Spike, but today she seemed to be back to normal. 'I wonder what's really on her mind?' 

She put the finishing touches on her left hand, and was going to go switch to her right when she happened to look up and see him looking at her. "What is it?" she asked him, annoyed.

He sighed and shook his head. "Nothing, Faye. Absolutely nothing." 'Women,' he thought. 'I will never understand them' With that, he got up from the couch and went to the kitchen to have a snack. When he opened the fridge door, he was shocked to find that about most of the food that was in there was gone. 'Damn wench' he thought angrily to himself. 'That was my bounty money that bought the food. She had no right...'

He came stomping back into the living room and threw an empty cup of noodles at her. "How dare you! Freeloading-"

He was cut off though, when Ed, who had been silent and never slept the whole time she was trying to track down Spike, started to squeal and clap her feet together. Faye and Jet, who had all of a sudden forgot about his squabble with Faye, stared at her in anticipation because that could mean only one thing.

"Success! Ed has located Spike person!" she exclaimed.

* * *

Spike was sitting in front of the television not paying attention to what was on. 'Why would I dream about Faye... escpecially like that? And why would I say those things to her anyway?' He continued to stare absently at the screen as he was flipping channels. 'This is not making any sense. Why do I find myself constantly thinking about her? Why would I want to be with her anyway? She can be such a pain in the ass... though sometimes she could be so different...' he thought of the time when she told him about her past. 'She can be so unlike herself, like she's a different person... and then she's not so bad... When she was crying to me, she looked so innocent and beautiful, how could any man go and hurt her like that... Wait... what the hell am I thinking?' He was roused from his reverie by the sound of snapping fingers. "Spike, are you okay?" 

He blinked. Erin was standing directly in front of him. "I asked if you're alright," she said with a worried frown. "I was calling you forever. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. How could he possibly tell her that he had another woman on his mind? He would never be able to explain himself. Hell, not even he understood what was going on either.

"Oh really?" she asked skeptically and looked over at the tv. "Are you going to pick a channel anytime soon?"

He looked at the television and realized that he was still flipping channels. "Oh, right," he said and put the remote control down, not really paying attention to what channel the tv was on.

"Now I know you don't seriously intend to watch this," Erin said as she looked at the Sesame Street show playing and then turned the television off. She sat down beside him. "Are you worried about something? You've been acting weird since morning."

He didn't even look at her. "I said there was nothing wrong. And yes, I was watching this," he picked up the remote and turned the tv back on.

Erin jumped up. "Damn it, Spike. I'm not stupid. Why do you always keep things from me? Don't you love me? Doesn't our relationship mean anything to you anymore!"

Spike jumped up as well. "What does our relationship have to do with this? I told you there's nothing wrong, why the hell do you keep bugging me? Just forget about it!" he snapped at her and then walked away.

Erin was wounded. "Bugging you? I'm worried about you! It's like you don't even care about me anymore, or about this relationship. I just..." her eyes started to water. "I just don't want to lose you..."

He stopped and walked back to her. "What are you talking about? Of course I care."

She shook her head as the tears continued to stream down her face. "It dosen't feel that way anymore..." She looked up into his eyes desperately. "What can I do to make things better, Spike? I'll do anything," she was practically pleading with him.

Spike sighed. How could he tell her that what she was doing was what made things so difficult. He didn't want her to be so desperate and pleading, he wanted her to be the independent woman he fell in love with those years ago. 'What could have possibly changed her so much?' He didn't know what to say, all he could do was try to comfort her. So that's what he did.

"Julia," he said as he drew her into an embrace, "Nothing's going to happen to us, don't worry." He held her tighter. "I love you. You know that." In his mind, he also tried to convince himself that that was how he felt.

"I love you too," she sniffed and held onto him tightly, wishing she never had to let go.

* * *

"It looks like Spike person is far far away in Venus," Ed said while getting up and jumping around, stretching out her limbs from being in one position for the last sixteen hours. 

Faye and Jet looked at the screen. "Spike is in Venus?" Faye asked, dumbfounded. "What the hell is he doing all the way over there?"

"Well," Jet analyzed, "Julia said that the woman who's posing as her has cut off her ties with Viscious, so perhaps she wanted to run away as far as possible from him," he looked over at Ed in the corner, who was still jumping aroud. "Ed, can you find out who it is that's with him?"

Ed blinked at him. "You want Ed to find out about lady person?"

"Yes, find out who she is."

"Okay," she chirped and proceeded to type furiously with her toes. "Found her!" she exclaimed.

"So who is she?" Faye asked impatiently.

"Well, she has her name in the system as Julia, but Ed knows better. Her real name is Erin."

"Erin... Erin... why does her name sound familiar?" Jet muttered to himself.

"What the hell are you mumbling about, Jet?" Faye asked sharply.

Jet gave her a bad look before he continued. "I was just thinking that I remembered hearing that name a lot when I used to work for the ISSP..."

"Ed has information on her right here," she said, yet again, pointing at the screen with her foot.

Jet looked at the info with realization. There was a picture of a beautiful woman with shoulder-length black hair and hazel eyes. She was hugging onto a handsome guy with brown hair and green eyes. They looked like young adults. "How could I forget! Of course, those two were notorious assasins a couple years back. They used to do assassinations for high profile people. They were among the best in the galaxy and were known to always handle missions together. The ISSP could never catch them. But I haven't heard about them for a couple of years now. I always assumed they decided to give up their life of crime and got married or something. I wonder what happened to the guy though?"

Faye quickly read the info. "Jet... it says that Spencer died two years ago... It wasn't said how he died though. After his death, Erin took a break from being an assassin."

Jet whistled. "Hmm... I wonder why she would go back to that life though."

Faye scoffed. "You know how rich that guy Visious is, most likely she couldn't turn down the money." She then looked at the two in the picture and frowned. Something looked very familiar about the guy... like she'd seem him somewhere before. "Jet, does this guy look familiar to you?"

"As a matter of fact, he does," Jet said, looking at the guy carefully.

Then she realized why he looked so familiar. "Look closely, Jet..." Faye murmured in awe, "He looks a lot like..."

"Spike," Jet finished for her, the same look of realization on his face.

* * *

While Spike was out, Erin went into the bedroom and opened her jewelry box with her key. She then took a picture out. It was a picture of she and Spencer together. "Spencer, I had loved you so much, I still do," she said as she stared at his face. "We could have been so happy together, forever. I wanted to be with you so much." Her eyes started to burn, tears threatening to come down. "But you had left me no choice. I tried to make it work, but you were never satisfied were you?" The emotions of anger that she thought she had gotten over all rushed back to her. "I did everything for you, I would do anything for you to make you happy and it still wasn't good enough, wasn't it!" she screamed at the picture, tears streaming down her face. She wiped away her tears and sighed. "Well, that dosen't matter now, it's over anyway." 

She then took out a picture of she and Spike. "I love you so much, Spike, and I will never let you go," she said as she stroked his face in the picture. "I will love you the way you should be loved and I won't let anything get between us... I won't lose you, I won't lose the one I love ever again."

She picked up a brush and started brushing her golden locks. "You will be with your dear Julia, you and me forever."

* * *

Spike walked around the city streets, trying to clear his head. 'What the hell's wrong with Julia? How could she have changed so much?' He sighed and then took out a cigarette and lighted it. 'After what happened the other day it's like I don't know her anymore. That day when we went bounty hunting...' 

----------Spike's reflection/summary about the other day----------

They were going after a pretty hefty bounty, a man named "Duke Millions." A nickname he well earned by his incredible wealth and power as head of a drug dealing syndicate along with doing illegal business. The reward for him was 102.7 million woolongs. Spike knew the ISSP was holding out on the reward but he thought that the price was pretty good compared to the huge amount of small fries around. So he wasn't about to complain.

Erin had suggested, well more like invited herself, to go bounty hunting with Spike. He didn't really want her to come along, she was crowding him enough as it was, and bounty hunting was the only thing he could do to have time alone. However, she insisted that she come along and there was little he could do to tell her otherwise.

Things were going okay, they were at Duke's base and had taken down the security that he had. Spike noticed that Erin was acting wierdly. She shot people differently then he remember her doing, and he noticed that each shot was intended to kill. Now, he knew that Julia was a good shot but she always had a certain hesitance to killing. The shots she were giving out now were very lethal. It was as if she had become very experienced at killing people.

And if that wasn't disturbing enough, when they came face to face with Duke, she shot and killed his top lackey, who was guarding him. And he was worth quite a bit of woolongs himself. Spike realized that she was getting carried away with killing all these people and he had to stop her before she could ruin all they had worked for up until then. The part that really freaked him out was the look in her eyes while she was killing all those people. They were no longer the eyes he was so familiar with. Instead, they had the cold murderous look that comes from someone who's had a lot of experience of killing others and had no value for human life. The scariest part was, it seemed as if she were enjoying herself. That look in her eyes had haunted his thoughts since that moment.

They had captured Duke and got their money. Things went back to normal... or whatever normal was those days, but Spike could not get what happened that day out of his mind. He never said anything to her aobut it but he saw her much differently since then. He realized she had changed a lot more than he had bargained for.

------------End reflection----------

He took a puff. 'Everything's getting so screwed up' He then spotted a bar. "I could certainly use a drink," he muttered to himself and went in.

"What'll it be?" The bartender asked Spike as he sat down on the stool.

"Whatever I can get for 1000 woolongs that dosen't taste like shit," Spike said as he rubbed his temple. He was feeling a headache coming on.

"Here ya go," he put the drink down in front of Spike. He drained the glass in one gulp.

"You're not supossed to drink that stuff so fast," the bartender said warily. Spike ignored him. "Another."

An older man beside him looked over at Spike and watched as he drained another glass. "I'm guessing you're having women troubles," he asked with a knowing smile.

Spike looked over at him and then looked into the bottom of his empty glass. "Isn't that always the reason?" he muttered.

"That's true, I can definitely relate. My bitch's always nagging me. Sometimes I feel like killing her. Or myself. Depends on my mood." The man gave a short laugh. "I still can't believe we've been married for almost twenty years and had two kids, it's amazing how I've survived this long."

Spike continued to stare at the bottom of his glass.

The man took another drink. "So, what's your story? Looks like something bad."

Spike didn't reply to him. Then he ordered another drink but drank this one more slowly, still not saying anything.

The older man didn't press him. Instead, he continued drinking in silence.

It was like that for a while. Then Spike took another swig of his drink and without looking over at the guy said, "I don't know who my girlfriend is anymore."

The other guy was kind of surprised, he hadn't expected Spike to answer him.

"We were together a couple of years ago and things couldn't have been better. But then we... life threw us in different directions and we went our separate ways," he quickly covered up. He couldn't go and tell the guy just how they split. That was just too much information.

"But then recently, we met up again. It was great, we were still in love with each other and everything. But it seems now that she's changed... She's become so clingy and annoying and it's really getting on my nerves and... also it's like she's become a completely different person. I had loved her... I mean, I still love her... I think. I don't know what to feel for her anymore. It just isn't the same and I don't like how things are going." Spike didn't know why he was telling the man all of this. Perhaps it was because the alcohol was starting to get to his head. Perhaps it was because the man told his whole story, the least Spike could do was tell him his part. Or perhaps it was because the man reminded Spike of a old friend back in the syndicate days. Whatever it was, it didn't matter, he had already spilled the beans.

The older man was still shocked at how much information the once silent man had just given him. After taking a moment to process the information, he ventured, "Well, you two were separated for a couple of years, sometimes people change dramatically in that amount of time."

"Yeah, I guess," Spike drank some more. "But I had asked her if anything happened to her over those years, and she said no. Maybe she was lying to me, I don't know anymore." He then sighed and finished off his drink.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," the man said to him assuredly. "Things may seem hard now, but you'll be able to work it out. Believe me, if I can handle it, I'm confident any other man could."

Spike got up and put the money on the table. "Yeah well... thanks anyway."

As he walked off, he heard the man say, "No problem."

Spike walked slowly back to the apartment. No doubt Julia was up waiting for him. Boy was she gonna let him have it when he got back, especially since he never told her that he was going out. He had slipped out while she was making tea. Spike took out another cigarrette and lit it up. This wasn't the life he wanted with Julia. Maybe the other guy didn't mind constantly going to the bar to ease his fustrations with his wife and just settling with his current situation but Spike didn't want to settle. He didn't want to live his life like this for the next who knows how long. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew that much. He sighed and took a long drag from the cigarette.

"Spike!"

He looked up when someone called his name.

He saw Erin running towards him. 'Damn... she went looking for me?'

She ran up to him and hugged him tightly. "Spike, I was so worried. You were at home and then all of a sudden you were gone. I called your cell, but then I realized that you left it in the bedroom."

He groaned silently. 'Shit... I can't even leave the apartment anymore... this is getting ridiculous'

She looked up at him and noticed his grimace. "Spike, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Julia," he sighed and continued walking back to their aparment.

"You don't look okay," she said as she followed him. "Why didn't you tell me you were going? Didn't you know I would get worried? Why didn't you ask me to come with you..."

'Maybe because I wanted to be alone for once in my life' he thought, annoyed.'What the hell is wrong with her?' For some reason, Erin's bickering was seriously getting on his nerves. It was as if she were treating him like a child and he didn't like it at all. He was afraid to answer her because of what might come out of his mouth. These days, every time he tried to express his desire for her to give him some space she would freak out and cry about how he didn't want to be with her anymore. And on top of that, he was pretty drunk at the moment.

When they got into the apartment Erin headed over to the bedroom but was surprised when Spike flopped onto the couch. "Aren't you coming to bed?" she asked.

"Later," he said as he picked up the remote.

"What are you going to watch? Want some company?"

"No, it's cool, I'll come to bed later." Truth was, he was exhausted, but the last thing he felt like doing at the moment was talking to her. He just needed to be alone.

"Are you sure? I'm not quite ready for bed yet either," Erin said as she came over to the couch.

"No really, go on to bed, I'll be there in a bit."

"Oh... okay," she said, looking dejected. "Well I'll see you later, then."

"Okay." 'It's so damn hard to get rid of this woman' He sighed and then started to absentmindedly flip channels again.

Erin slowly walked away from him and then turned around and watched him lazily flip channels until he fell asleep a few minutes later. She knew he was pulling away from her, and she didn't know what to do about it. 'There's something wrong, I know it. He's been acting very weirdly lately, especially since the the other day when we went bounty hunting together. He's very distant from me now...'

She then leaned against the wall, so filled with emotions of despair and helplessness about the situation. 'This is just like the last time... with Spencer... It can't be... No, I can't let this happen again' She clenched her fists determinedly. 'I can't...' Tears started to come to her eyes. 'If this happens again, then it's all over...'

* * *

Ooohh... I wonder what's gonna happen? Wouldn't you like to know? I mean, really, cuz I haven't quite figured it allout yet myself, lol (j/k) Well I hope you all enjoyed, plz review 


	8. And it all falls apart

Me: Hello everyone! I know it's been a long wait and I apologize a million apologies -.-; But the good news is, this chapter is where things get really heated up, and the next chapter is coming soon, I promise! I know because I'm almost done with it! Thanks to **TooLazyToSignIn** for your nice review but umm Vicious and Faye never slept together... at least not in this fic... O.o

Faye: eww!

Vicious: Hey, what's wrong with me?

Faye: Everything!!! x.x

Vicious: Now you've hurt my feelings -goes into a corner and cries-

Spike: -laughs and points at Vicious-

Me: o.o Enjoy and plz review :) Oh and I dun own Cowboy Bebop

* * *

Chapter Eight: And it all falls apart

"What's taking so long?" Faye asked impatiently, glaring at Jet, who was doing maintenance checks on the Bebop.

"Well exuse me your highness, I'm sorry if it's taking a while to make sure this ship actually makes it to Venus and back," he retorted angrily. "The Bebop is an old girl, after all."

"More like a piece of junk if you ask me," she mumbled while walking away.

"What did you say?!" Jet lost it. Nobody gets away with dissing his beloved ship. No one.

She didn't respond and continued to walk away. "Damn bitch," he muttered. He knew she was worried about Spike. He was too but her attitude still got on his nerves.

"Jet person! Jet person!" Ed came cartwheeling into the room. "When are we gonna go go go?!"

Jet gritted his teeth but then forced himself to calm down. Getting mad wouldn't help anybody at this point. "In a little while, I just have to put in the coordinates for our destination and Julia will be here soon. After that, we will go."

"I don't see why we have to bring her along, it's her own fault this even happened in the first place," Faye scoffed as she walked back into the room.

"Well it's not like she did it on purpose," Jet said as he smirked. "Though I could see that being a nice scheme of yours."

"How could you even think that?!" Faye said in surprise. "I would never..." Then she realized what Jet was doing and a bright blush came over her cheeks. "That is something only a dumb bitch would do," she said defiantly, trying to cover up her embarrassment.

"Right..." Jet replied, his smirk growing wider. He found it so amusing when he was able to get Faye worked up over Spike.

Faye was determined to ignore him so she looked out the window and then frowned. "Speaking of dumb bitches, here she comes..." Julia's ship was approaching the Bebop.

Jet sighed. "I guess we're ready to go then."

-------------

Spike didn't know how much more he could take. Here was this beautiful woman that he was once crazy in love with, and now he wanted nothing more than to get away from her. 'Maybe I'm overreacting' he thought as he took a drag from his cigarette. He was sitting on the balcony overlooking the light-speckled city streets below and the dark outline in the night sky of the mountains far ahead. 'I can't really leave her, I've wanted to be with her for so long... maybe in a way I'm trying to sabotage my own happiness...'

He was disturbed from his thoughts when Erin came out on the balcony. "There you are," she said and sat on his lap. She took the cigarette out of his mouth and took a drag from it.

Oh yeah, one of the reasons was that she had been trying to spend every waking moment with him lately. More than before, if that were even possible.

"You know what would be great," she said as she exhaled a puff of smoke and then gave the cigarette back to Spike. "If we bought a home here someday."

Spike didn't respond. He took the cigarette and took a drag.

"Wouldn't it be great if we started our family here?" she continued.

He replied by exhaling a puff of smoke.

"You're not going to answer me?" she asked, getting upset. "So what you mean is, you don't want to start a family with me then?"

"I never said that, Julia," he said, while trying to keep the edge out of his tone. He started to tap some of the ash off the cigarette. He hated it when she put words in his mouth, something she started doing a whole lot of lately.

"So what are you saying, Spike?"

"I'm saying," Spike said as he finished tapping the cigarette and put it back in his mouth, "that maybe we might decide to settle down someplace else. You never know what the future brings." 'Why did I say that?' He wondered to himself. 'What she said before was closer to the truth; I guess I don't want to dissapoint her'

Erin's glare turned into a grin and she hugged onto him possessively. "I guess you're right. Now that I think about it, I love that its just us, without any kids getting in the way. I don't wanna have to share you with anyone else."

Luckily for her, she couldn't see Spike rolling his eyes. He disentangled himself from her and stood up. "I'm tired, I'm gonna head over to bed."

She looked up at him in surprise. "This early?"

"Yeah," he said wearily as he opened up the screen door that lead inside their bedroom. "I've had... a long day."

"Aww baby, you should have told me," Erin said as she went over to him and started to massage his shoulders. "I'll help you feel better, just tell me what you want me to do," she whispered seductively, her lips brushing his ear. "I'll do anything..." she softly kissed his ear and made her way to his mouth and started to kiss him passionately while caressing his body, placing her hands underneath his shirt and then brought them down ever so lower until she started to unbutton his pants.

Spike, getting turned on, kissed her back and proceeded to take off her clothes. She in turn took off his clothes. He then took her into his arms and led her to their bed. They shared passionate kisses until it lead to other... activities (A/N: Use your imagination peeps)

-------------

Spike cracked open one eye and then closed it. The sun was shining brightly in his face through the open shades.

'Damn, why does the sunlight have to be so annoyng? How could I have forgotten to close the shades last night?' He opened his eyes again and looked over at Erin, who was sleeping with her arms wrapped around him with her head on his chest. She looked so peaceful and happy. He smiled. 'Maybe I was overreacting to consider breaking up with her. She has changed a lot but I've changed as well, perhaps I was being too hard on her. Maybe if I gave the relationship a chance, she may not irritate me so much anymore' He gently stroked her hair from her face. 'Leaving her would be too drastic, and I guess in retrospect, she really hasn't done anything wrong, except for that bounty hunting incident' He frowned in worry. 'She really scared me there, but maybe I've been reading into it too much. Now that I think about it, she did seem to be distracted that day...' He was interrupted from his thoughts when she woke up and looked at him.

"Are you okay, Spike?" she asked in concern, obviously noticing the frown on Spike's face.

He smiled at her. "Don't worry, Julia, I'm fine." 'So what if she's changed? She loves me and I love her, and that should be enough, of course it is' he was trying to convince himself.

She looked at him for a while, as if she were searching for the truth in his eyes. Then she smiled and hugged him again. "I love you so much, I never want to leave your side."

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. "I love you too."

-------------

Vicious landed his ship just outside the syndicate headquarters, livid. He had left headquarters to look for Spike, Erin and Julia himself, to no avail. Every time he called to check on how his lackeys in the "intelligence unit" were doing in their search, it was always the same answer: they weren't able to locate them yet. So he decided to pay them a surprise visit. 'I am fed up with their insolence; if I'm there it will force those useless low-lives to get off thier lazy asses and start following my orders'

He stormed into the headquaters and found Tiger, who was in charge of operations while he was gone.

"Hello, sir," he said, though he obviously looked nervous about something. "So... you're here now?"

"Have you found out where Erin is hiding?" Vicious asked, getting straight to the point.

"Umm well, you see," Tiger stammered, not looking nearly as tough as he usually seemed. "We haven't been able to find her yet-"

He cut him off. "What about Spiegel and Julia?"

"We weren't able to find them either, sir..." he said in a low voice.

A low growl escaped Vicious' lips and his fingers were twitching to grab his sword. He had to stop and resist the urge to kill this useless idiot before him.

"However," he continued, sensing that Vicious was close to murdering him, "We do have leads on their whereabouts; we've ruled out that they are not in Mars. So the most probable places to search are Earth, Jupiter and Venus."

The silver-haired man stopped and thought. 'So they're not in Mars. Of course they would run to a different planet... It shouldn't take long to locate them now, since Mars is a much harder planet to find someone in than those three planets combined...'

Tiger looked closely at Vicious. 'He looks a little less pissed now... that's good. But none of us were able to tell him that the kid died. If I tell him, he'll kill me... but he's gonna find out anyhow... shit'

As if he could read his mind, Vicious asked Tiger the one question he wished he didn't have to answer. "So where's Jin?"

Tiger, the tall, big and intimidating rough-looking man had in two seconds been transformed into somewhat of a five-year-old. "Oh, Jin... uh, he's umm..." he started timidly, deciding to lie until he could come up with some better way to prolong his life.

Vicious looked at him sharply until a voice caught his attention.

"Yeah, that was totally screwed up, about what happened to the kid..." The voice got closer to them. "Well Louis told him that Julia escaped but of course no one had the balls to tell him what happened to the kid. Tim's such a dumbass, he didn't have to go kill him, I'm glad he got his stupid brain blown off. You know how the boss protects that kid, now it's our asses ..." Vicious stepped out of the room to face him, once again absolutely livid.

Dave dropped the phone. "H-hello sir..." he said slowly backing up. "So you're back already, hu-"

"What the hell is going on?" Vicious cut him off, this time his hand was on the handle of his katana.

"Um well, you see," Dave started. "I wasn't there when it happened, so it wasn't like I could-" he was cut off when Vicious brought the blade of the sword to his neck.

"I don't care if you were there or not," he said while holding the blade against his skin, the blade so sharp that he was already starting to bleed. "What happened to Jin? And no bullshit."

"W-what happened was..." Dave was so freaked out he could hardly speak. Tiger saw that Vicious was two seconds away from killing his good friend, and he obviously couldn't talk, so there was only one thing he could do.

"On the same night we lost Julia," Tiger said, his head down. "We had also lost... Jin."

Vicious looked over at him, his eyes narrow as slits. "How did this happen?"

"It happened when," he took a breath. "When Jin helped Julia escape headquarters..." He had no idea what Vicious was going to do to them at this point. His guess was they would both be dead by the next minute. For a second he considered fighting him, but knew that it would only result in a quicker death. At least like this, he may have a shot in hell to escape his demise.

Vicious slowly removed his katana from Dave's neck, who fell to the floor, terrified. He put his sword back into its hilt, and turned to leave.

"You will find them," he said coldly. "If you value your lives." Without another word, Vicious walked out of the room.

Tiger stared at Vicious' back as he left the room. 'I can't believe he didn't kill us, but something tells us he won't give us any more chances' He looked over at Dave, who was still on the floor, obviously as dumbstruck as he was.

"Dave, you okay man?" Tiger asked him.

"He didn't kill us..." Dave muttered, amazed. "We're still alive..."

"For now," Tiger said.

--------------

He walked to the room where Julia was held captive for those weeks. He was still upset about losing Julia and having his plans ruined, but he found he was even more upset about Jin. He sat down on the floor and put his head against the cold wall. His crow flew off his shoulder and circled around the room.

'So, you had to go and betray me as well?' He scoffed. 'I should have known; people can not and should not be trusted' His hands shook slightly and he balled them into fists. 'It's better you died. If you never betrayed me, you would still be alive...' Even though he thought that, he really didn't believe it. He wouldn't admit to himself that he was sad that Jin died; instead he took his pain out on what the boy died doing. He closed his eyes.

---Flashback---

The boy stood in front of him with a look of pure determination on his face.

Vicious smiled to himself. He had to admit the boy had spunk. To stand up to him after he stole his emergency rations and ended up being chased by Vicious until he got cornered took guts.

"I'm not afraid of you," the boy said, though Vicious could see his body was slightly shaking. The fire in his eyes, though, never wavered.

Normally Vicious would have killed him by now, the boy was obviously an orphan from around the area who had made the mistake of taking his food. But for some reason, he hesitated with bringing his sword out. The boy's eyes looked so familiar somehow.

The boy then took the chance to pull out a gun on Vicious. He hesitated as his hands continued to shake, and Vicious started to wonder if he would shoot him at all.

'He's not going to shoot me,' Vicious thought as he started to draw out his sword. 'He's too scared. Oh well, he did have potential' Then the boy suddenly fired his shot before Vicious had fully unsheated his sword. Vicious was just able to use his half-drawn sword as a shield in front of him, resulting in the bullet ricocheting off his katana.

'Damn brat,' he thought. 'It was foolish of me to underestimate him while he's armed, a mistake I know I should never make with anyone' He ran toward the boy, he moved so fast that the boy missed his shots. Vicious's katana sliced the gun in half and he pinned the boy to the wall and had the sword against his neck.

"Game's over," he said, leering at him.

The boy looked right into his eyes, that same look of determination ever present. "Fine then, go ahead."

He was quite shocked from the boy's statement. He had faced adults more than twice that kid's age who hadn't taken this moment half as well as he had. Most men were tough when they had their guns, but without it and cornered, they cried and sniveled for their lives like babies. The kid in front of him barely flinched. Vicious was becomming very impressed with this boy.

He slowly stood up and placed his katana back into it's hilt. "I suppose I'll let you live..." The boy looked surprised. "I have a proposition for you; however, you're welcome to refuse." He didn't know what drove him to tell the boy this; there was just something about the boy that he couldn't leave alone, perhaps it was the fact that this boy reminded him very much of himself at that age. He felt silly for feeling this way, but he knew that he would be dissapointed if the boy refused his offer.

"You're pretty good with the gun, boy. Are you on your own?"

The boy didn't answer at first, still a bit startled by the man's sudden change of behavior. He decided to go along for the moment but to also play it safe. "Yeah," he answered tentatively.

Just as he thought. "You have potential, you could put those skills of yours to good use if you decide to come with me."

The boy was quiet as he thought it over. "Would you train me?"

"Myself along with other people," he responded.

"Other people?" The boy repeated.

"Yes, you would be joining the Red Dragon Syndicate."

"I would be joining the Red Dragon Syndicate? I would get to be a part of the brotherhood?" Vicious smiled. It seems the boy sounded interested.

"If the van will let you in," he said. The boy's face fell. "Though its not easy to get into the syndicate, I think you won't have much of a problem getting in."

The boy's face lighted up again. "Really? How do you know?"

"I just know these things. What is your name?"

"Jin."

"Okay then, Jin," Vicious said as he started to walk away. "If you've decided to accept my offer, come with me now."

Jin hesitated for a bit, and then ran to catch up with Vicious, who had already gotten far walking in long strides.

----End flashback----

He slowly got up and his crow flew back onto his shoulder. "There's no need for me to dwell on the past, all of those useless attachments have been severed. The only thing left for me to do now is to kill off the rest of them." Looks like he was going to have to make things happen for himself.

------------------------------

"Today's bounty is worth a hefty sum, his name is Jimmy Spark" His stats were shown on the screen.

Judy did her little dance, shaking her, well you know. "Ooh wow, he's worth a lot, twenty-million woolongs to be exact!"

"That's right!" Punch replied, "But who will be the lucky one to catch him?"

"Maybe it'll be you!" she said, pointing at the camera as if to point at the viewers watching.

"We will have more bounties tomorrow, but until then-"

"Happy hunting!" They said in unison.

"Twenty-two million, sweet!" Spike said as he rubbed his hands together. Erin however, didn't look too happy.

"What's wrong?" Spike asked her.

She crossed her arms. "I hate the way this show dehumanizes women," she said in disgust. "That bimbo is there for nothing more than to be a sex symbol; it makes me sick."

"Oh, Julia," Spike said, trying to stifle a laugh, "That? Don't let it bother you."

She looked at him angrily. "Glad to see someone is amused," she said sarcastically.

"It's not like that," he said quickly. "But that's how things work. Especially since most of the viewers of Big Shot are men."

"Well women watch it too, and I just don't think we need a half-naked bubblehead co-hosting the show."

"Actually, I've heard she's quite a bitch when the cameras are off," Spike mused. "Anyway, it dosen't matter Julia, she's not my type if that's what you're worried about."

"Oh really?" Erin asked skeptically, "Even though her boobs are practially all over the camera?"

"Please," he scoffed. "It's so obvious they're fake. Besides, I prefer the real thing," he then started to fondle her chest. "Nice and soft, just the way I like them."

She laughed. "You'd better." She then started to kiss him. He kissed her back until other stuff happened... (A/N: Once again ppl, you know, not for kids and stuff...)

--

They stared up at the ceiling from the floor. Erin sighed contently and hugged onto him tightly. "We should get married; we love each other and it's only fitting we spend the future together."

He was so caught off guard by her statement that he couldn't speak. 'Married...?'

"It's the perfect season for a wedding, don't you think?"

Spike still didn't respond. 'Me and Julia... get married?' He was lucky she couldn't see his face from where she was laying. He looked like a deer caught in headlights.

She frowned at him. "Spike, did you hear me?"

'What do I say; how can she just expect me to agree to something like this on such short notice?!' He didn't know what to do so he decided to try and change the subject.

"Oh crap, I almost forgot!" He got up from the floor and pulled his pants on. "I'll be out for a little while," he said as he started to put on his shirt.

Erin, from her spot on the floor, pulled his arm. "Do you have to leave now?"

"Yeah," he said as he buttoned his shirt. "I have to go pick up some parts for my ship, it's been acting up lately. You know how the stores here close early on Sundays." That was actually half the truth. He did have to get some parts for his ship, but he didn't have to get them at the moment. However, it posed as a perfect, logical escape from her dreaded question. It would also give him time to get away and think about it so he didn't say something he would regret later.

"Oh," she said, dissapointed. Then she smiled. "Okay, I'll go with you then." She sat up and started to put on her bra.

Spike stepped into his shoes. "There's no need for you to come, I'll be back soon."

"But Spike-"

"Don't worry, Julia, I won't be long." He kissed her and made his way over to the door.

"... fine. See you later," she said, defeated.

"Later," he said and then left.

----

'She didn't force me to take her along,' he thought as he walked down the main street outside the apartment. 'However, all the same, I should still go to the hardware store in case she changes her mind later and decides to follow me'

He approached the hardware store. 'Heh, Faye was always wrecking her ship. She gave so many hardware store owners IOU's that they ended up banning her' he chuckled to himself until a lady walking nearby gave him a funny look. 'I wonder who she's scamming now' he thought as he walked into the store.

-----

Erin tried to watch television but she couldn't focus on what was on. 'Why didn't he want me to go with him?' she looked out the window. 'What if he wanted to see someone else?'

"Of course not," she said to herself as she got up and turned off the television. She couldn't get the thought out of her head however, and started to worry. 'He has been acting strangely and distant for a while now, maybe its because he found someone else... Just like what happened with Spencer...'

"It can't be," she said as if trying to convince herself. "That will never happen again, I'll make sure of it... no matter what it takes." She headed out of the apartment after Spike (A/N: In case you're wondering, she had already put her clothes back on XD)

-----

Spike headed out of the hardware store, bag of equipment in hand. 'Damn... I love you Swordfish, but the parts for you are so freakin' expensive' Getting parts for an old model like Swordfish was hard; few stores have the parts and the ones that did made them very expensive.

Spike was busy lamenting the price he had to pay so he didn't notice a certain woman nearby.

"Hey, is that you, Spike?" A voice called out to him.

He stopped in his tracks. He knew exactly who that voice belonged to even though he hadn't heard it in quite a long time.

He turned around. There, a couple of feet away, stood a beautiful woman with long red hair and green eyes. She was waving at him, a huge smile on her face.

He also smiled as he walked towards her. "Hey Lizzie, long time no see," he said. She ran over to embrace her old friend.

He hugged her back and then she pulled away to look at him. "It's been so long, Spike. I think ten years already. What are you doing here in Venus, anyway? I always thought you were the type of guy who would never leave Mars."

"Yeah," he said, scratching the back of his head. "Well, I decided on a change of scenery, ya know?" he said, leaving it at that. "What about you? What are you doing here in Venus? You were also the Mars type."

"Well, I've also decided to live somewhere new," she blushed happily. "Besides, Venus is the best place to start a family." She showed him her ring. "I got married last year and I'm now expecting," She patted her still flat stomach lovingly.

He smiled, genuinely happy for her. "Congratulations, Lizzie, I'm very happy for you," he said and hugged her again.

------

'He said he was going to the hardware store for some parts so perhaps he's at the one not too far from here' Erin went to the hardware store being careful not to get too close for fear of Spike seeing her. She had told him that she would stay home, after all. She stood a safe distance away from the store and waited for him to come out.

She then spotted Spike walking out of the store. "Why didn't you want me to come with you?" she whispered to herself.

Then she saw a young woman who was passing the store stop in front of the store and then run toward Spike. She saw them embrace.

'What's going on?!' she thought, rage quickly taking over her thoughts. 'Is this the reason he doesn't want to be with me anymore, because of **her**?!' She clenched her fists. 'That bitch won't take him from me, I'll kill her first!' Blind rage taking over, she ran over to where they were.

-----

They parted and Liz cocked her head to the side, a smirk on her face. "So how about you, Spike? Have you found someone special?"

"Well, actually I..." he trailed off when he saw Erin come up toward them.

"So is this the reason, Spike?" she yelled, pointing an accusing finger toward Liz. "You don't want me anymore because of her?!!"

"Julia, what the hell-"

"And you," she said, rounding on the unsuspecting woman. "You whore! I'm going to kill you!" She ran up to Liz and clasped her hands around her throat, choking her. "Die, bitch!!" Liz tried to pry the crazy woman's hands off her neck, but she was too strong for her. It was getting to the point where she could no longer breathe.

"Julia!!!" Spike yelled and ran up to her and tried to pull her off. "What the fuck are you doing?!!" He finally pulled her off and held onto her tightly while she struggled relentlessly in his grip.

"Let go of me!!!" She yelled, tears streaming down her face. "Why do you want to protect **her**?!!"

Liz, finally being able to breathe, was breathing irregular breaths and glared at them. "What the fuck is her problem?!!" She rubbed her throat. The girl had almost killed her.

Spike was barely able to hold onto Erin. She was incredibly strong, and her struggling wasn't helping him either. "I am not cheating on you Julia!" He yelled at her. "She's a friend of mine, that's all!"

"How stupid do you think I am?!!" She yelled back. "I saw you two together!!"

"There's nothing going on between us!" Liz yelled. "I'm already married and two months pregnant!" She looked down while rubbing her stomach. "Spike is like a brother to me, that's all."

"Like I'm going to believe you," she spat while trying to break free of Spike's grasp. "Let go of me!"

He strengthed his hold on her, if that were even possible. "Julia, stop it!! There was nothing going on between us!!" She continued to struggle. "If you won't believe her, at least believe me!!!"

Erin finally stopped struggling and Spike turned her around to face him, his hands firmly on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes and said sternly, "Listen to me, Julia, what she said was right. She's a friend of mine, she's practically my sister; we grew up in the orphanage together and we haven't seen each other in a long time. That's what's been 'going on.'" Erin closed her eyes, and bowed her head down. He let go of her and walked over to Liz.

"Are you all right, Liz?" he asked, feeling very guilty and embarrassed about what had just taken place.

"I'm fine," she said while casting Erin a bad look. "I have to go now," she said and picked up her bags and started to walk away. "It was nice seeing you again, Spike."

"It was nice seeing you too, Liz," he said. "Maybe we can meet up sometime."

There was no answer from Liz as she continued to walk away.

He sighed and started on his way back to the apartment.

"Spike," Erin said as she ran off to follow him; his strides were so big and he was walking so fast that she could barely keep up without jogging after him. "I'm... sorry."

Spike didn't answer her. Instead he walked faster. He was too pissed off to speak to her at the moment.

"Aren't you going to answer me? Spike!"

Still no answer.

She ran in front of him and grabbed onto his clothes. "Please, Spike, please say something. Don't ignore me like this. I'm so sorry, I just, I just saw you two and of course I would get jealous but please, please don't hate me..." she cried, sobbing on his shirt.

She was making a scene right outside their apartment building and people were staring at them. "Get off of me, Julia," he growled.

She looked up into his eyes and saw anger, disgust and... hate? 'He can't hate me, I'll die if he hates me...' She didn't let go of him, instead she grabbed onto him tighter. "What can I do, Spike? I'm so sorry I didn't trust you, I'll do anything..."

He was sick and tired of her possessiveness, her desperateness and her craziness. "Get off of me, just leave me the hell alone!! That's what you can do!!" She then let go and he went on into the apartment.

She stood out there, petrified, his words cutting through her heart like a knife. She stood still for what seemed like an eternity. 'He doesn't want me anymore, he hates me now...' The words kept running through her head. Fresh tears ran down her face. 'This can't be, I can't lose him. There's got to be a way I can get him to love me again' She ran into the apartment.

-----

Spike threw his clothes in his suitcase, not caring what he threw in or in which order. All he knew was that he had enough. He tried to make it work with her, but it was clear that it was impossible. She had gotten crazier than he thought; the old Julia would never act this way and it scared him. The look she had in her eyes, that was the same look she had when she killed those men. No doubt she was about to kill Liz had he not intervened. He threw some random underwear in the suitcase. No way did he bargain for this one.

Erin ran in the apartment, the door being left open. "Spike, please..." her words trailed off when she saw Spike emerge from the bedroom, suitcase in hand.

"I'm leaving, Julia," Spike replied, "We can't go on like this anymore."

At that moment, Erin felt like something in her mind snapped.

* * *

Okay, the next chapter is what Erin does now that Spike's leaving her. You don't wanna miss it -wink- 


	9. Reunion

Hello, I am back with another lengthy chapter for you all. This will be a good one: it's what you've all been waiting for -wink- I've been looking at my old chapters and I see where I've made alot of mistakes, (I spent a good chapter or so misspelling Vicious' name for crying out loud) but I'm a little lazy to re-do all those chapters. Maybe I'll get around to it sometime in the future. Before going on, let me thank you all for reading and a special thanks to the reviewers for the last chapter, **Sassy18** and **happyFIT**. They get special e-cookies, chocolate chip :) Before I start, I have something to say about the comments made by my reviewers:

To Sassy18: Yep, I'm back from the dead, yet again :) Omg, how did you get into my manuscripts or my mind even?! o.o Oh no, I've already revealed too much! -runs-

To happyFIT: I'm glad you love my fic :) Your suggestion was good, sorry to disappoint you but after reading this chapter you will see why that is not possible... yeah

Well, on with the fic!

* * *

Chapter Nine: Reunion 

--------Flashback---------

"It's over, Erin," Spencer said, "It's just not working out."

"What... do you mean, over?" she asked, hardly believing the words coming out of her own mouth.

He sighed. "I can't be with you anymore, it's too hard."

"What do you mean too hard? After everything we've been through you're just going to leave-"

Spencer ran his hands through his curly brown hair in frustration. "It's not like that, Erin, and you know it! Don't make me out to look like the bad guy here, I've tried to make this relationship work more than you'll ever know. I've tried everything, I love you so much-"

She cut him off. "Have you really? If you really love me then you wouldn't be doing this to me!"

He paused for a moment before talking. "Maybe you're right. The truth is, I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore. My feelings for you have changed and I don't want to start despising you so its best if we end things as they are now."

Tears started streaming down her face and she ran over to Spencer and threw herself in his arms. "Please, please don't say that, baby... I need you, I can't live without you..." she sobbed into his shirt.

"Erin, listen," he said as he pried her off of him and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Listen to me, you need help. I've tried to deal with this, I tried to be all you needed but it is just too much for me." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I can't do this anymore. I've realized that I will never be able to fill the emptiness you feel inside and in the process, being with you is no longer what makes me happy; I'm just tired."

She looked up at him with a pleading look. "Spencer, I'm so sorry, I swear I'll change! I'll do whatever you want me to do! Please, just don't tell me..." she was sobbing so hard she could no longer speak.

He let go of her and stepped away as she fell to the floor, still sobbing. "I'm sorry, Erin, but its something I've decided on for a while now. I've already gotten a place to stay; this is good-bye." He then walked toward the bedroom door.

Erin threw herself at his feet and held on to his legs. "I won't let you go! I love you too much to let you go!"

"Damn it, Erin, how many times do I have to say it?" He pried her off of his legs. "It's over!"

She fell back and then slowly got up. "No... no no no..." she mumbled to herself, shaking her head. 'It can't be over, I won't let him leave me...'

He left the bedroom and went into the living room. "I've tried so hard to make you happy..." he heard her say from behind him.

Spencer turned around to see Erin at the door, pointing her gun at him. He then heard the gun click, so he knew the safety was off. "What the fuck, Erin!" he yelled.

"All I've ever done was love you and do everything I possibly could for you," she sniffed, tears still running down her face. "But it was never enough for you!!!"

"Erin, just put the gun down-"

"Shut up!!!" she screamed. "I've done everything for you, I was always there for you on our assignments, I always did whatever you asked me to, I've done everything to please you! And yet you still cheat on me-"

"Y-you knew about Jessica?" Spencer asked shakily.

"Yeah, I got rid of the bitch earlier today, so if you were thinking of running off with her, you're sadly mistaken," she said with a sadistic smile on her face.

"Damn it, Erin, what the hell are you trying to do?!" he yelled.

"I'm trying to save our relationship!" she yelled back. "I was willing to pretend it never happened, but you just want to throw it all away!"

He held out his hand. "Erin, this is crazy; give me the gun."

"It's too late, Spence, too late for us," she was shaking; fresh tears running down her face.

"Erin, don't-"

"Farewell, my love," she said as she pulled the trigger.

His body fell to the floor with a thud.

Still shaking, she dropped the gun and walked over to him, still crying. "Why would you do this to me, Spence, why would you want to leave me?" She lifted him up and placed his head on her lap. "I never wanted to do this but I had to! Don't you understand?"

There was no answer as he lay silently in her arms.

--------End Flashback---------

"Leaving?" she repeated.

"I'm sorry Julia but I can't take this anymore. I just can't deal with this; I can't deal with you being so paranoid and crazy all the time. I'm done."

Fresh tears came down her face as she ran toward Spike and held onto him tightly. "No... no, Spike, please, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I know what I did was wrong but please, don't leave me!"

He sighed and after a pause, said, "Julia, please let go of me."

"No, I won't let you go! This can't be happening!" she said, her face buried in his shirt.

"Julia," Spike said, his temper once again flaring, "for the last time, let go of me!"

She responded by holding him tighter. "I love you, Spike. I won't let you go!" She looked up at him, though her iron grip never loosened, "We can work this out and be happy again; we need to! Please say you will-"

He roughly grabbed her arms and pulled her off him. "Don't you understand?!" he screamed at her. "It's over! How many times do I have to repeat myself before you'll get it?!"

"No..." she fell to the floor, "Not again... this can't be happening..." she mumbled. 'Why is this happening again? Why does he want to leave me so badly? Well I won't let him leave, even if I have to...' She crawled over to the cabinet and pulled out something.

"I will not let you leave me, Spike."

He turned around and his eyes grew wide. She was standing up, holding a gun that was aimed at him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Do you think I'm going to let you leave me?"

He blinked in disbelief. "Are you that fucking crazy, Julia? Are you going to kill me because I won't stay with you? You're worse than I thought-"

"Shut up!!!" she screamed while taking the gun off its safety. "I don't want to do this, Spike, but you've given me no choice! Just like Spencer..." she then started crying harder.

'Spencer?' he thought to himself. 'Who the hell is he?'

"Spencer?" he said questioningly.

"Yes, he did the exact thing that you're doing now. Actually, he did a lot of the same things you did; you two are a lot alike." She laughed and brushed some hair away from her face. "I guess that's why I've fallen so hard for you."

"What the hell..." Spike muttered.

Her face got serious again. "Yeah, he tried to leave me too... but I made sure he didn't, just like I'm going to do with you."

'This whole thing happened before and she killed him?!' he started to get scared now. He didn't think that Julia would actually kill him but he realized that he shouldn't underestimate her, not with the way she's been acting these days. He looked at her and then saw that look, the same look she had with that bounty head and with Lizzie and now with him. She was serious.

"Julia, hold on, don't get all trigger-happy on me," he said, backing up.

"It's too late for that now, sweetheart," she said as she aimed the gun at his head and shot.

He just barely dodged the bullet and flew behind the couch.

She laughed again. "So now you're running away from me? You're only making things more difficult for yourself."

He was behind the couch. She didn't come any closer. 'Shit... what am I going to do now? Of all the times to not have my gun on me...'

"Are you going to keep hiding? At least take your death like a man; Spencer did that much."

This gave him an idea. He rose from the couch with his arms slightly raised. "Before you kill me, I just have a question... who is this 'Spencer' anyway?" He'd figured she would launch into a story about him and it might buy him some time to think, or act if he was lucky enough to get her off guard.

At that, she relaxed her stance and a dreamy look came over her face. "Oh, Spencer was my beloved. We did everything together. I loved him so much. We knew each other for a long time; way back from the orphanage days. We even trained together. We eventually became a couple and started doing assignments together. Everything was going fine until he decided he had enough of me," she said, getting angry again.

Spike was getting confused. 'Orphanage? Training? Assignments?' he never knew this part of Julia's past. "Assignments? What kind of assignments did you two go on?"

She smiled. "We were assassins," she continued, "The best in the galaxy, I might add. And now," her smile grew wider as she once again aimed the gun at him, "I'm afraid it's over for you."

At that point, the door busted open and Julia, Jet and Faye ran in.

Erin turned around and stared at Julia in disbelief. "You're still alive?"

Spike took the moment of Erin's distraction to run over and snatch the gun out of her hand.

"You..." Julia said through gritted teeth. "Die, bitch," she said and shot her.

She fell to the floor. Julia shot her a couple more times for good measure.

"... what the hell..." Spike muttered, looking from Erin to Julia.

"Spike!" she exclaimed and ran over to him. "I thought I would never see you again!" she hugged him tightly, tears starting to fall down her face.

Faye looked at him, she couldn't believe it. He was standing there, safe and sound, it was a miracle that he was still alive. She found that she could neither move, nor speak.

"Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" he asked nervously.

"It's over, Spike," Julia let go of him and smiled up at him. "The nightmare is all behind us now."

"Nightmare?"

"That woman there wasn't Julia, she was a fake," Jet filled him in, "Her real name is Erin. She was an assassin, a notorious one at that. She was hired by Vicious to kill you."

"What..?"

"That sick bastard," Julia said angrily, "He wanted you to die thinking that I killed you. Then he would get your corpse and show it to me, and then kill me afterwards."

"What the hell?" he said in shock. "How do you know about this?"

"He held me captive," she said, looking down. "But I was able to escape... it's a long story..." She didn't want to go into how Jin had helped her escape, thinking about his death was too much for her, especially since she just wanted to focus on her happiness that Spike was still alive.

"I don't understand why she waited until now to kill you; it just doesn't make any sense," Jet said, while scratching his head. "But then again, as they say, don't question it, just be grateful," he then started to laugh awkwardly.

'I know what the reason was' Spike thought to himself. 'It's all because I reminded her of the man she loved...'

"Spike, are you okay?" Julia asked in concern, seeing the pensive look on his face.

"I'm fine," he said, smiling at her. "I'm just glad that this is over as well."

She hugged him again.

"Not to ruin the party, but I want to get out of here," Jet said as he looked over at her unmoving body. "What should we do with her?"

"It doesn't matter," Julia said in disdain. "Someone's bound to find her sooner or later; they can take care of it."

"Fine, works for me; all of this excitement's gotten me tired," Spike said as he rubbed his face with his hands.

"Sure, let's go," Jet said and they all left the apartment.

"Hey... wasn't Faye with you earlier?" Spike asked.

"Yeah... I don't know when she disappeared," Julia responded.

"Maybe she's back at the ship," Jet reasoned.

'I wonder why she left so soon' Spike thought to himself.

-----

"What's wrong with me?" Faye said as she put her ship in autopilot and leaned back to think. Soon after she saw that Spike was safe, she ran out of the apartment and got her ship from the Bebop and took off.

'I thought that I would be okay seeing him again, but these feelings just came over me... I thought that I had it under control' she put her hand over her chest. 'My heart is still beating fast.' She leaned back and sighed.

"I just need to have a drink and take the edge off, I should be fine by tomorrow. Hopefully by then, I'll have these crazy emotions under control and everything will be back to normal." She then took back control of the ship and headed over to a city area in Venus.

"I hope they have some good sake here," she muttered.

-----

The three walked back onto the Bebop. Spike took in everything around him. Same old look, same old smell, same old jelly stain on the living room floor. 'Great to be back,' he thought. He then saw Ed on her laptop, like always. As if by instinct, she turned around and smiled at him. "Welcome back, Spike-person."

He hadn't realized how much he missed this place, even Ed. He smiled back at her. "Hey, Ed."

"It's all thanks to Ed," Julia said while smiling, "she was the one who found you."

Jet chimed in, "Yeah, she did it all right, must have taken her around seventeen hours or so. I know it was a lot of hard work, Ed, you must be exhausted."

"It was no problem for Ed, Ed was happy to help," she said with a big smile on her face.

Spike looked at her in amazement. 'She went through all of that trouble to find me...' For a moment he was speechless. So he walked over to Ed and ruffled her hair. "Thanks."

She beamed up at him in return.

"So, Jet, you got anything to eat around here?" Spike asked as he sat at his favorite spot on the couch.

"Oh, here we go with that again; that was the one thing I didn't miss while you were gone. I'll see what I've got," Jet walked into the kitchen.

"It's okay, Jet, I'm sure I can find something to whip up for everyone," Julia said as she followed Jet into the kitchen.

"Are you sure?" Spike could hear the cabinet opening. "There isn't too much to work with here." He then heard the fridge door open. "Oh, that's enough; I can definitely make something out of this."

"Really? that's great, thanks."

"No problem."

Jet came out of the kitchen and sat next to Spike. Spike pretended to be sleeping.

"Hey, Spike."

He didn't open his eyes.

Jet groaned. "I know you're awake."

Spike still didn't respond. A couple of seconds later, he felt a pillow hit him hard in the face.

He opened his eyes and sat up. "C'mon, Jet. That was harsh."

"Never mind that," he said impatiently. "What happened to you out there? What happened with the girl?"

Spike yawned. "You already know; she's just some psycho who was about to kill me."

"Don't give me that," Jet said, annoyed. "What happened during the time you two were together? Obviously she didn't spend the whole time trying to kill you with you still being alive and also for the fact you didn't find out sooner unless you were braindead."

Now it was Spike's turn to groan. "I don't feel like talking about it right now," he said as he leaned back and once again closed his eyes.

Jet was about to argue but then he stopped. 'Spike's been through a lot today, he's probably trying to process the whole thing that was going on. I guess I shouldn't push him to talk right now'

After a moment Spike opened his eyes. "Faye's ship isn't here."

Jet didn't expect him to say anything so he was caught off guard from his deep thought. "What was that?" he asked.

"Faye's ship; I saw it wasn't here when we were outside. I guess she left."

Jet groaned again and picked up the remote. "That woman is always running off. She could have at least waited until we had already left the scene. What if we had needed backup later? Selfish wench."

He started flipping channels but nothing interesting was coming on. He was expecting a reply, but got none. He looked over at Spike. Was it him or did he look a little... disappointed? 'Nah, couldn't be' he thought to himself. 'Maybe he's just tired or something. But still...'

"You know, she was very worried about you," he started, not sure why he was telling him this but thought he should say it.

Spike looked over at him, his eyes slightly widened. "Oh really?"

"Yeah," Jet said as he started flipping channels again. "I mean we all were but especially Faye. Knowing her she probably went away to blow off some steam from this event."

"Oh..." he didn't know why but hearing that made him feel better. 'So Faye was worried about me...'

"Listen, Jet," he said after a while, "I'll tell you all what happened, I just need some food first."

Jet didn't expect him to say that. Taken aback, he said, "Sure, Spike. Whenever you're ready."

-----

Vicious stepped to the door of Spike and Erin's apartment, a small smile adorning his lips. 'I've finally found you' he thought as he attempted to bust the door down. 'That's strange' he thought. The door had offered too little resistance to him. 'This place reeks of blood' He carefully walked into the room and looked around, his hand on his katana.

He stepped just inside the door when the sight on the living room floor stopped him in his tracks. "What the hell happened here?" he muttered, barely audibly.

He stooped down and looked at the blood. "Still fresh," he murmured. "Just what the hell happened before I got here and just whose blood is this?" There was a big blood stain on the floor, but no body.

He slowly stood up and looked around. 'Maybe she killed him' he thought. 'Damn bitch. How dare she make a mockery of my orders?!' He saw small drops of blood leading to the bedroom. "Oh I will enjoy killing you," he said while he followed the trail.

He went into the bedroom and saw that the traces of blood stopped at the dresser drawer. "Damn," he said, frustrated as he looked around the room for signs of life. Little did he know he was being watched from behind.

'Time for me to end this' The hidden person took out their gun and shot him.

Vicious didn't know what hit him. All of a sudden, he felt his muscles go weak and he fell face down onto the floor.

"So we meet again." The woman staggered out of the closet and stood over him, smiling. "I knew you would come lurking here sooner or later."

Even though he couldn't lift his head to see her, he knew who it was. "Erin..." he croaked. 'Damn, I can't move... The bitch shot me with a tranquilizer...'

"You're going to die anyway but I'll do you a favor," she said with a sadistic smile. "I'm going to make it a quick death for you... aren't you lucky?"

His crow started flying at her, trying to scratch her with it's claws. It managed to scratch near her eye.

"Damn it!" she screamed. "Fucking bird!!"

"Julia, no..." he barely got out.

She shot the bird. It fell down and she shot it a couple more times. "So you just wanted to go a little faster... no problem by me."

She sat down on the floor next to him. "So you named your bird after Julia? How pathetic. What is it about Julia that make you men so crazy?" She ran her finger up along his cheek and then grabbed his hair. "But if you want before I kill you, I could pretend to be her. Hell, I'm practically her now anyway."

'What have I done' he thought to himself. 'I've created a monster...'

She pulled him by his hair and kissed him. She then pulled him away from her and smirked, "And now it's time for your suicide."

His eyes looked up at her in confusion.

She then proceeded to take his katana out of it's hilt. "This will be the perfect setup," she positioned him and placed her gloved hands over his lifeless ones and used them to help him hold the sword to his neck. "Perfect!"

His eyes were pleading with her but she was too far gone to care. She had that look of bloodlust in her eyes, and there was no way of reaching her at this point. He closed his eyes and prepared himself for the last breath he would ever take.

After her work was done, she got out her cell phone and dialed a number. After three rings, the person picked up.

"Well hello, Erin. It's been quite a while, what's up?"

"Steve, I have an offer for you I'm sure you won't refuse," she said, getting straight to the point.

"Really? And what would that be?"

"How would you like it if I told you that I have Vicious dead and that he was yours?"

There was a pause before he responded. "What? You have Vicious, head of the Red Dragon Syndicate and chief Red Eye dealer, dead?!"

"Mmmhmm. So how about it?"

Steve laughed. "What can I say? The ISSP has been internally trying to track him down for years. If I presented them with his body, a promotion is the least I can expect."

"That's what friends are for, right?"

"Yeah," he mused. "We've been helping each other out ever since the days back at the orphanage. And even now, you, killing the difficult criminals that the ISSP couldn't handle. Sometimes, bounty hunters weren't enough. And I in return, kept the ISSP off your trail for all those years."

"There is something I would like you to do though," she said, her tone getting serious. "I need for you to file a suicide report on Vicious. I can't afford for things to get messy, I have to stay low for a while."

"I see. Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I don't think they'll look too much into his death anyway. So I'll just come by now and make it as if I found him dead in the apartment-"

"No, it can't be here," Erin cut him off. "I'm in Venus with him right now. Some people will get suspicious if they knew he was here. Can't you arrange it for somewhere in Mars?"

He sighed. "Yeah, it can be arranged. It'll be a little more work but I'll work something out."

"Thanks, Steve. The rewards will be worth alot more than the consequences, I promise."

"I should be the one thanking you, Erin," he responded.

"Heh." She started to get up from the floor but winced in pain. "Shit..." she murmured. She partially reopened her wound when she had gotten up from the floor.

"He gave you a hard time, huh? Are you going to be okay?"

She avoided answering his first question. The less he knew about what happened, the better it would be for the both of them. "I'll be fine. Something like this has never stopped me before."

Erin gave him the address and hung up. She got up and slowly made her way towards the bathroom where she could tend to her wounds. That damn Julia was going to pay for what she did to her, she'd make sure of it.

-----

It wasn't until after three A.M. when Faye finally stumbled back onto the Bebop. She opened the door and went inside the living room. 'That was some good sake, I've gotta remember that place for future reference... now what was the name of the place again-'

Just at that moment, Spike popped up from the other side of the couch and raised a hand in greeting. "Yo."

She gasped in surprise, tripped and fell. Spike got out of the couch and rushed over to her. "Are you okay?" He tried to help her off the floor.

"I'm fine," she snapped as she shook herself out of his grasp and glared at him while clumsily getting up. "What the hell are you doing up so late?"

He ignored her question. "Have you been out drinking, Faye?"

She folded her arms and sneered. "None of your damn business."

He was becoming extremely irritated with her behavior. "What's wrong with you? The hell are you thinking flying your ship out there as drunk as you are?"

"Why the hell do you care?! I don't need a lecture, especially not from you!" she yelled. Who did he think he was, giving her the third degree like this?

"I couldn't care less about what happens to you!" he lied. "I just don't want your drunk ass scratching up my ship when you do what you call parking out there!"

"Well you don't need to worry," she retaliated. "Your precious ship is fine!" She tried to walk away but stumbled. "Damn it, my shoe heel's broken thanks to your dumb ass..." She took off her shoes and stomped away.

Spike was fuming. 'Damn it, she always manages to piss me off. All I was trying to do was greet her and she gets all bitchy on me. And to think I was happy to see her again...' he thought as he watched her storm off. 'But still...'

Faye went into her room and shut the door. 'What the hell was his deal, treating me like a child? I swear he gets on my nerves' she thought in drunken anger as she jumped onto her bed. 'I should have kicked his ass for treating me like that!' she fumed. 'But still...' she fell asleep before she was able to finish that thought.

Spike went up to his room and quietly shut the door behind him. 'I hope we didn't wake the whole ship with our screaming match down there' He looked over at Julia on the bed, sleeping. 'Seems like we didn't though' he thought in relief as he silently slipped into the bed beside her.

Little did he know, she was not asleep.

-----

The next day, Spike and Julia were in bed, neither of them having the energy to get up even though it was almost twelve. They were laying down, Julia's head was resting on Spike's chest, and he was stroking her hair.

'I can't believe what happened to him with that woman. She was really messed up' she thought.

After a while, she looked up at Spike and broke the silence. "When I think about what you told me last night, about what happened between you and that woman, I feel sick. How could she have done all of those things and honestly think it was normal behavior?"

"Well, as screwed up as she was, I could see where she was coming from," he said while lighting his cigarette. Julia's eyes slightly widened. "She grew up in the orphanage," he said while he exhaled the smoke through his nose. "It's hard being brought up in there. You don't get encouraging words from loving parents. She was probably starved for love and attention. She probably thought she could get it from joining a group but those assassination groups are harsh. They were probably the ones that finished the job of messing up her mind."

"So you're saying that because of all this, she doesn't know how to love so she becomes desperate and attached to the one she wants to be with?"

"Pretty much," he said while tapping the cigarette ashes into the ash tray.

She moved over to the side and propped herself on her elbows. "And just how do you figure all of this, anyway?"

He stared off into space. "Well, it's not hard to see how all this happened once all the clues come together."

"I see," Julia looked down. "I wonder... that is, if you don't mind telling me... if that's how you felt when you were growing up in the orphanage..." she said in a low voice.

Spike looked at her for a moment and then closed his eyes. "I guess you could say that, but joining the syndicate was good for me at the time, they were like my family." He then opened his eyes. "And also, being with you was what helped me; it was the best thing for me."

Julia looked at him and got lost in her thoughts. Even though her parents didn't raise her, she was fortunate enough to have been raised by her older brother. Sure things were very hard for the two, but at least she was with someone who loved her unconditionally. She could only imagine the pain Spike must have went through.

He noticed that she got very quiet and he propped himself up to get a better look at her. "Julia, are you okay?"

"It's nothing," she quickly smiled. "I'm just glad you're here with me."

He smiled back at her. "So am I."

She got out of the bed and stretched. Spike's smile grew wider. He was enjoying the view.

"So, are you ready?"

"Huh... am I what...?" he said distracted from thinking his impure thoughts.

"Hmph.. I said..." she started, pretending to be annoyed, "are you ready?" She threw on a silk robe and tied it.

"Well it depends on what I'm ready for," he answered skeptically.

She ran back over to the bed and put her hands on either side of him and leaned over him. "To start packing; remember we talked about it last night?"

"Oh, we talked about that?" he said, his gaze drifting to her chest, where the robe was providing very little covering with her leaning over him.

"Yes," she said with a smirk while taking his face in her hand and forcing it up so he was looking at her eyes. "You forgot already?"

"Well," he said coyly, "I remember us doing a lot of things last night, but talking wasn't one of them."

She gave a short laugh and got up and started to walk away.

"Hey," he called from the bed. "Where are you going?"

She turned around at the door. "I'm going to get ready and I suggest you get out of bed and do the same," she proceeded on down the hall to the bathroom to wash up.

Luckily when she reached the bathroom, no one was in there. She locked the door and leaned against it and sighed. Everything was supposed to be perfect now, the whole mess was over with but she was still left feeling uneasy.

She went to the shower and turned the water on. When the water was nice and warm, she went in and let it wash over her for a while. 'Last night was great, it's been so long since we've been together. But I just can't help but feel there is something between him and Faye... why did he have to get up later to wait for her to come home when he could have easily waited until today to see her? I'm just glad he didn't catch me eavesdropping on their argument, it would have ended so badly'

She ran her hands through her hair to get it out of her face. 'I don't know what got into me; that's not something I would do normally' She took a deep breath. 'I've got to stop thinking like this, they're good friends, it's okay for them to care about each other. Right, that's all it is, they're only friends, I have to stop worrying. Spike's with me now'

But the thoughts still stuck in her mind.

* * *

Well, that's it for chapter nine. Very exciting, huh? Well there's more coming, I can't honestly say when, but when it comes it will rock your socks! Okay seriously, something really special will happen in the next chapter. You heard it here first. I hope you enjoyed, plz review. 


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